LFI lesson #1 of 2025, with Kara

 This week's first lesson in Let's Face It 2025 was with Kara Bullock, owner/artist of Kara Bullock Art School, physically based in Tustin, California, but the online source of almost all my art instruction since just before the pandemic commenced. The Let's Face It class is a year-long intensive of portraint-painting instruction, one lesson per week (sometimes two, if there are bonus lessons) with different portrait artists in many media. I tend to stick to my two of choice (watercolor or acrylics), and do the lessons from my own perspective, but I nonetheless learn a lot by watching and listening to other painters as they share their methods.

Kara paints with much more spontaneity and much less blending than I do, which is something to which I have aspired ("be more painterly" is a constant refrain in my head), so it's always fun to see if I can emulate her methods. I don't, however, enjoy painting from the same reference as the other couple thousand people taking the class, so I tend to look for one with a similar vibe and then use the methodology to create my own piece. So this week, even though I did like the reference photo she chose, I found one with the same upturned eyes on the Instagram of the incomparable model @duhhcid, Jenell Del Cid, whose portrait I have painted half a dozen times now and who is one of my favorite models.

Kara works with an underpainting (she usually uses Burnt Umber Light), so I decided to do one too, but I used Red Oxide instead, because I wanted something warmer. It initially made me a bit crazy, because everything I painted over the top looked too light and bleached out against the relatively dark surface; but I kept working, and I ended up really happy with the glow it gave to the entire painting. It warmed up the skintones, kept the hair from looking flat, and made a wonderful undertone for the background color, which is a combination of Ultramarine Blue, Titan Green Pale, and a tiny bit of Naples yellow.

Here is Jenell in all her attitudinous, messy-haired glory. Thanks, Kara, for a great lesson! "Messy Jenell," acrylics on thin birch board, 12x12 inches.

Redoing (improving?)

I painted a portrait back in 2022 and had all kinds of trouble with it. Pictured in a sepia-toned daguerreotype was a romantic young woman with one hand pressed to her chest, but the hand as pictured in the reference photo wasn't attractive. Since my ambition at the time was a realistic, accurate portrayal, I painted it as is; but it was both ugly and unconvincing, despite being just like the photo. I then went online and found a photo with another hand pressed to another chest, and I painted out the original and subbed in the new one. It looked better, but I was never satisfied with it. It just didn't seem to "rest" where it was placed, and felt like an afterthought—not my goal! The more I looked at it, the more it felt like a zombie arm attached at an awkward angle.

I also disliked the background I had created. She was pale with dark hair, and in the original she was against that dark backdrop, but I didn't want her hair to disappear into that. So I made a background using a rather raucous shade of green overlaid with a rose pattern stenciled in pale yellow. As soon as I had done it, I felt that it fought with the portrait for attention and regretted my choices, but I didn't believe I could paint over the background because of the stenciling texture. Also, at that time I was all about finishing up and moving on to the next something, so I left it be. I even put it up for sale in my Etsy store, but had no takers

This past week I was inspired by my artist friend Phoebe, who doesn't hesitate, if she decides she is dissatisfied with something she has painted, to give it a complete makeover. Sometimes I think what she has done is a transformative improvement, while other times I liked it better before she started—but I have to admire the courage with which she jumps in to radically alter something she has created. One of the things I've been talking about lately is to be braver and also less precious about my work, so I took another look at this painting and decided to see if I couldn't make it better/more satisfying.

First, I mixed a medium pink with some Payne's Grey to create a mid-value pinkish-violet color, and painted over the green/yellow stenciled background. That color still seemed a little intense, so next I glazed over it using some of my new favorite Golden color, Titan Green Pale, which is a barely-there green reminiscent of celery. I liked that, but it felt too light to me, so I decided to use some Cobalt Violet to see if I could, using a dryish stencil brush, just hit the tops of the painted-over stenciling to get a gentle echo of the tight pattern of roses.

I don't think I quite succeeded in recovering discernible roses, but I did get a nice dappled darker violet texture over the surface of the rest, and I decided it would work.

I then turned my attention to the figure. First I mixed up some Naples Yellow and white to cover the part of the arm pressed against her dress, which was about that color; and then I mixed some Titan Mars Pale to cover the hand where it lay across her chest and squeezed out some Red Oxide to cover the hand where it crossed the ribbon trim. I had to do two coats of all of these to get rid of the hand and arm, and then I pulled up the original photo and tried to paint and shade the dress the way it appeared in the reference, but sans arm. I shaded things with some Raw Umber and a little Cobalt Violet. Finally, I went back into the face and hair and made them just a tad more dramatic. Although there isn't a lot of shadow in the reference photo, I decided it could use a little extra oomph.

Here is my girl Rose, fixed for the third and hopefully final time. I think she works better now; what do you think?

"Rose Renewed"—acrylics on thin birch board, 12x15 inches.