Following in the steps of an idol

I have, for some time, been completely taken with the paintings of Rosso Emerald Crimson (no, I doubt that's her given name, but whatever she wants to be called, I'm fine with it). The combination of perfectly realized portraits with a variety of odd backgrounds that may or may not make sense, and may include clothing and furniture or simply feature a head and shoulders emerging from paint is so beguiling that I return to them again and again.

I almost didn't sign up for Let's Face It 2023 this year; I am already registered for three other classes, none of which has been broached yet, and thought I would focus on those. I especially considered skipping it because there's a lot of drawing going on, with pencils, charcoal, and pan pastels, none of which did I want to do! But when I heard that Rosso would be one of the artists furnishing a painting lesson, I couldn't resist.

Since she paints in oils and I in acrylics, it's not all transferable, but enough of it is to make it an interesting exercise, and I knew that at the very least I could learn some solid color theory (which I did). The paint mixing kind of backfired, since with acrylics the stuff you mix only remains viable for maybe an hour, but I absorbed the theory. I also realized, through this process, that there's a reason why Rosso's stuff is so good—she is painstaking in the extreme, which I don't know how she manages, given how spontaneous her work looks, but there were twice as many segments to this lesson as to any other and much of it was Rosso placing one dot of paint here or there to bring up the whole to perfection.

As I frequently do with these lessons, I sought out my own reference photo rather than using the one employed for the lesson, because I don't want to end up with a picture that looks just like everyone else's in the class. So some of the color instruction was lost because the skin tones were being mixed for a specific person, and my person had lighter and more olive tones. I did, however, find someone with a hairdo almost as fun, and with the added advantage (or challenge) of some colorful clothing instead of a simple white slip.

I painted my background yesterday and did the drawing last night; I then photographed it this morning and corrected the drawing to match the reference more closely, and about 11 a.m. I began to paint. I took a lunch break at 1:30 and went back to the portrait at 3:00, finishing up about 6:30 (although I had to give it a couple of hours to dry thoroughly before I tried to scan it). I shouldn't be sitting still for long periods like that, but hey—every once in a while you have to break the rules, even your own.

I went considerably bigger than the lesson painting, and was glad I did, because even so the little fiddly details of eyes and nostrils and ears and mouth were tough. I did the classic Rosso technique of painting my original background a kind of eggshell color and then coming in at the end with blue to make the figure pop. I like the blue with the browns of the figure and the reds of the shirt.

The only thing I'm really not happy with here is that, once again, I can't get my model to look at me. I put the eyes and pupils and highlights all in the exact place they occur in the photograph, and yet somehow she is staring out into space rather than right at the viewer as she should be, given all those constants. I just do not understand why that doesn't work sometimes, but there it is.

"Amelia"—pencil and acrylics on thin birch board, 12x16 inches. (The scan is cut down a bit from 12x16 because of the limits of my flatbed—there is more cream color around the outside of the painting than shows here.)

You can see Rosso's work @rossoartist on Instagram. Have a look.