17 July 2021

Lesson 5, Part 2

Here is my second portrait of four: I did much more to fulfill the requirements of utilizing the background and keeping the face painting fast and loose this time—or rather, I did less? Lots more interesting background this time, and I was able to leave it for both hair and shoulders, I think to interesting effect. Took me about an hour. (Took Emma 30 minutes.)


"Sultry Dutch Girl"—charcoal, acrylic paints, Stabilo marker, on 140-lb. Fluid coldpress watercolor paper, approx. 9x12 inches.

Lesson 5 with Emma

For Lesson 5, we were supposed to prepare backgrounds on four individual A4 grounds (approximately 8.5x11.5 paper), and then paint four portraits in a row, one after another, attempting to do them quickly, brushily, and spontaneously to keep the time around 20-30 minutes apiece.

I didn't quite have it in me to paint for that long under the circumstances; I find following along while Emma talks quite enervating after a while, because I am used to painting while listening to music, and the start and stop of the video while I watch and catch up produces tension. So while I can paint for hours when I'm "on my own," in this case I had to take a break after the first portrait.

Also, while Emma wanted us to leave certain details (like hair) to blend into the background rather than being definitively executed, the hairdo on the girl in the first reference photo was so charming that I couldn't resist reproducing it. So my first portrait came out a lot more precise than what we were supposed to be aiming for; but I'm really happy with it, and feel like I still kept a lot of the spontaneity of the brushwork even so. I did end up painting out most of the background, so as to highlight the hair; but I made it thin on one side so some of the background paint and pencil marks would show through.


"Corona" (for her hair, not the virus!)—acrylic paint, watercolor pencils, charcoal, and Stabilo pencil on 140-lb. Fluid coldpress watercolor paper, approx. 9x11 inches.


15 July 2021

A layered Boleyn

This piece certainly started out as something different than it ended up. Each step was logical, most of them didn't work, and so the next one was designed to cover that one up and move on to something that might.

I've been cutting stuff out of magazines and old journals and such for a while now, saving up words and phrases and sometimes pictures to perhaps use as collage elements in painted pieces. I came across a picture of Henry VIII (I'm Henry the VIII, I am) and thought it might be fun to incorporate it into a portrait of Anne Boleyn, his second ill-fated bride.

I found a picture online of an actress playing the part, and I decided to try a new technique: I drew her in charcoal, then went over her with a few pastel ink colors, and then glued on my collage elements, afterwards painting over everything with a thin coat of gesso. My aim was to be able to see both the drawing and the subtle colors through the gesso and emphasize the important features in another layer, but the charcoal I used was so hard that it didn't come out very dark, and in the end I couldn't see much.

At that point I decided to draw her in ink instead, using a sketchy line, which worked okay; but the ink colors I had also expected to show through the gesso were so faint as to be virtually indiscernible. So I got the inks back out and painted in some shadows and colors, gave her lips and eyes some definition, and added costume, including jewelry.

For all the effort I had gone to, I might as well have just painted onto white paper! But I did like the way the gesso faded back the collage elements, so I guess that was okay. The background pattern on her left was an unexpected accident: I put on a layer of Payne's Grey, decided, after a minute, that it was too dark, and went to lift it with paper towel, but it had dried just enough that the pattern from the toweling was left in the paint. I then went over it with olive green to warm up the background, but the pattern still showed through. I like it—it looks like wallpaper. But I couldn't get the same clear effect on the right no matter what I tried. I guess it doesn't matter, since Henry is on that side.
 

"Anne Boleyn"—charcoal, acrylic inks, gesso, Uniball pen, gluestick, collage, on 140-lb. Fluid coldpress watercolor paper, 9x12 inches.

14 July 2021

Horizontal Woman

The next exercise was more focused on the backgrounds, almost, than on the face. The format is horizontal; the head is cut off at the top, and the face is the only painted part, in the sense that both the hair and the shoulders/neck are made up of whatever was there after we created our backgrounds.

Emma did this one so fast I couldn't believe it; and I likewise tried to keep up by being more "painterly" and less focused on individual brushstrokes than on general effects.

I don't feel like I succeeded too well. Emma always says, if you mess it up, don't worry, you can go back and paint over it; but there is something essential lost from these portraits if you cover too much too early—you simply can't get it back. So the light side of the face is a bit saccharine in its pinkness, while the dark side got overworked as I kept adding colors, trying for more depth and contrast.

It's still kind of a cool portrait, but only if I don't hold it up next to the master's. Time to remind myself that she's been painting this way for several years, and move on to the next try.



















"Horizontal Lady"—gesso, charcoal, acrylics, Stabilo "All" pencil on 140-lb. Fluid coldpress watercolor paper, about 11x18 inches.

Next attempt

 I slightly mislabeled things in my last post; lesson #2 was the creation of the background, while the painting of the two portraits is lessons #3 and #4. So today I redid lesson #2 by creating a new background, this time going bigger and also a lot less dense and with a lighter hand; and then repeated #3 by painting my vertical portrait.

I chose for my model an actress who plays a minor role in the TV miniseries Bridgerton; her name is Ruby Barker, and she plays the pregnant "cousin," Marina.

I was much happier with the results of my background this time, and planned more carefully how to keep the maximum underpainting showing in the final portrait. The dress shows a good percentage of underpainting, as does the hair and her chest. I also dropped the Prussian Blue and instead used a lighter and fresher color, Ultramarine Violet Light, which I really liked in combination with the other three colors and which also acted as a nice shadow/accent for the face.

I'm still getting the hang of painting with acrylics; although I love the abrupt brushy strokes Emma makes, it's hard for me (a veteran watercolor blender) to simply leave them alone! I also tend to put the paint on too thickly, only to have to scrub half of it off with a paper towel, but in this case that gave me some nice effects on which I was able to capitalize.

I enjoy working large, but I don't like it that I have to photograph the results rather than scan them; it's hard to get a flat photo without a shadow. In this case, the white at the upper left is every bit as white as that at the lower left.

"Ruby Marina"—gesso, charcoal, acrylics, and Stabilo "All" pencil on 140-lb. Fluid hotpress watercolor paper, 12x18 inches.



12 July 2021

Lesson #2

This is Lesson #2, otherwise known as a Hot Mess!

I spent the afternoon creating backgrounds for two portraits, and I think it's all to do over tomorrow, because I got carried away and covered most of the white of the paper with layers of color, which is not the idea at all. There need to be bare areas as well as paint areas, and the paint needs to go on thinly, but mine rapidly got dark and impenetrable.

I decided to try painting a girl on one of them anyway, and it did not go so well. I had to do far too much covering up of the background, when the idea is to let it shine through, and I had absolutely no idea how to save the hair area. I'm also so clumsy when it comes to applying the acrylic—I haven't yet got the feel for the perfect consistency, not too wet or too thick, to get it to go on smoothly. Not that your goal is always to have it be smooth, but you have to be, um, "artful" about it.

Anyway, here's my first effort. I'm going to have a do-over tomorrow, and maybe a few more after that. After all, each one is instructional.