Questionable decisions

This is today's painting—this is Rose. I named her that because she has such a sweet, romantic look to her (the reference photo is an old sepia-tone), and also because I decided before I painted her that she would have a floral background. I ordered some new stencils after the fun I had with the one I used on Janell last week, and one was a cluster of roses, which seemed perfect.

My original plan was to do the background in a darker green and the rose pattern in pink; but after considering that her complexion would be primarily pink and that her simple dress (which I liked and wanted to keep) was a neutral color, I took a risk and made the roses yellow. I liked the combination of the vibrant green and creamy yellow when I painted in the background, but since I painted Rose in the foreground I'm wondering if I made the wrong choice. The background to the photo was extremely dark, and I didn't want that because her hair would disappear into it; but I may have erred too far in the other direction. I wanted the effect of her emerging from a garden, but it's kind of a loud garden!

I thought about redoing the background but the disadvantage with using a stencil is that the texture is there, and hard to cover, even with a thick impasto of paint, and since the portrait itself is relatively smooth, I didn't want a rough-looking border around it. So I'm going to leave it for now and ponder whether it's worth risking the portrait to make the background something more congruent with the figure.

The other challenge with this one was that damn hand. I repainted it four times, and I'm still not happy with it. It is in the exact position as the one in the photo (I made sure, by opening the photo in Photoshop Elements and then overlaying a photo of my painting at 60 percent opacity so I could see both), and the vagueness of the hand is similar to that in the photo, but it looks unfinished and amateurish to me, in comparison to the rest of the portrait. If any of my artist friends have suggestions, I'm listening! But for now, I'm giving up and going with it.

"Rose and Roses"—pencil and acrylics on thin birch board, 12x16 inches.

New challenges

This week I decided that perhaps, rather than taking on new challenges as regards materials and methods, I would instead switch out the type of subject that I paint. I never realized, until I attempted it, how different it is from painting adults to paint children. I have only painted a few and, admittedly, not small children even yet, but rather those approaching adolescence. But even those have different proportions to adults and require a different kind of focus.

I found a reference photo online on one of those nostalgia pages that put up old quirky black-and-whites of random families; the rest of the family was posed sedately in a line in the driveway next to the family car, but the daughter of the house was out in front of the bumper, clutching her hands together and with her mouth dropped open in an expression of astonishment or dismay, it's hard to know.

I didn't quite capture the look on her face—this girl maybe looks more like she's singing a solo in choir!—but I had fun with it, and also, because it was B&W, I got to decide the approximate colors through which she should be interpreted. I chose to do a "ground included" look, in the manner of my heroine Florence Lee, by leaving the dress largely defined by the background color, in order to make her face stand out that much more.

"Astonishment"—pencil and acrylics on thin birch board, 12x16 inches.

Being "painterly"

I complimented someone recently on a painting they shared on Facebook and said "it's very painterly." They didn't know what I meant by that. The actual definition is "characterized by color, stroke, and texture rather than of line." What I was attempting to convey was that she had painted in a looser style, with actual strokes showing, which is something to which I have aspired. I tend to get super blendy and make sure there are no hard edges in my paintings, and while it's an acceptable method, it feels less spontaneous and expressive than I would sometimes like.

Last week's lesson in Let's Face It was by Simone Scholes (@simonescholesart), who has evolved her style to a more painterly one by taking her reference photo and pixelating or "posterizing' it, so that the separate areas of color and shadow are more clearly defined, and then painting from that instead of from the regular reference. It's an interesting approach, and does yield a much less specific yet more emotive image. I didn't have the app she was using and didn't want to download it, so I took my photo into Photoshop Elements instead and approximated what she had done (not quite as successfully).

I definitely didn't go to the extremes to which she goes—hers are almost like paint-by-numbers in a way (I don't mean that as an insult!), in that she has definite separate strokes of paint for color changes, with little blending between them. I can't quite make myself do that, but for me this paint is much more brushy and less tight than usual, so I appreciated the lesson and the idea behind it. Ironically, I think this painting took me longer to produce than a "regular" one would, because I was so focused on achieving that painterly look that I had to keep backing up and replacing things to go with that! But I did enjoy this, and will try another with a conscious focus on strokes rather than blends.

This was a fun one for me to attempt, because I just painted it a few weeks ago, with a line drawing in pen and a wild watercolor palette. Jenell Del Cid is a favorite model, and I didn't feel like I quite captured the amount of startlement in her eyes in the watercolor, so I got to try it again here. I'm pretty happy with it! (My scanner cut off the top 1/4 inch, but I couldn't be bothered to re-scan. There's a little more hair and border at the top than shows here.)

"Jenell What?!" — pencil and acrylics (and stencil)

on thin birch board, 12x12 inches.

Here's the previous version in watercolor (and acrylic inks):

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.

Keeping skills sharp

I had a humiliating lesson this past week in what it takes to keep your skills sharp. I did a portrait of a writer I admire (Rebecca Solnit) that will henceforth never see the light of day, either on this blog or elsewhere, it was that bad. From a slight head tilt, she became so angled that she looked like she was about to topple over. I chose nontraditional colors (painted her in blues and purples because I was going to put a political quote on the painting) and rather than quirky and interesting, she looked like a catatonic zombie, and it wasn't just the weird colors, it was the crazed look in her eyes! I managed to paint a really nice mouth, but the rest of the portrait would have frightened Morticia Adams.

On Thursday, I decided to try again. This time I followed a suggestion from friend Phoebe, who said, Maybe slow down your usual gung-ho three-hour process, do the drawing, wait a day to look at it, correct it, and then paint, which is what I did. I have also learned that if I make a scan of my drawing and put it up on my computer screen next to the original, I can somehow immediately see flaws that I just couldn't recognize when confronting me from the surface of the paper. I corrected the tilt of one eye, made the nose the proper width, and played with the hair, and then painted.

The painting part also started out rather disastrously, as I got paint everywhere but where I wanted it and had to do a significant amount of "lifting" to get rid of some of it before I could continue. I started out with a big mop brush, because I wanted it to be loose, but ended up retreating to my Escoda Prada to "mop" up the mess and finish the portrait.

I ended up pretty happy with it, and have, in fact, had an inquiry about buying it, so maybe I still have my mojo...but I need to quit waiting weeks between paintings and get back to a regular schedule in order to keep my skills intact.

"Toni Morrison"—Daler Rowney inks, Jackson watercolors, Uniball and Signo pens on Fluid 140-lb. coldpress watercolor paper, 12x16 inches.

Evolving work

This didn't turn out quite as I had envisioned it. My initial plan, after gessoing a board, was to paint it in acrylic; then I decided it would be better in watercolor. When I actually began painting, I had thought to do it in a more cartoon-y style and make it more like a Deb Weiers-inspired painting, with a colorful ink background and a wonky quality. But after the ink dried and I started to draw, I found myself making it mostly realistic so, despite the double black line and wonky colors, it became a more traditional rendering.

That's not to say it was entirely successful—for some reason I find Emma particularly hard to capture and even though each element related properly to the others, it somehow didn't become a sum of its parts in the way I would have liked. (And don't get me started on the teeth/mouth, I redid it about six times and should have left the first version!) I had a similar challenge when it came to capturing Pippin; both of their faces turned out too wide and not long enough.

I did have fun deciding where to put in "regular" color and where to let the background either show through or dictate the colors I used.

Anyway, it's not the result for which I was hoping, but it's not so bad I can't show it to people (I don't think?).

"Emma and Pippin"—Daler Rowney inks and watercolors on 140-lb. Fluid coldpress watercolor paper, 12x16 inches.

Here are my process pics:

 

Reverting to style

I haven't been painting much (or at all) lately, and I don't know quite why. Some of it is that my legs are giving me trouble, so sitting for long periods isn't good; but if I can sit to watch TV or scroll Facebook, I can sit to paint, so that's not really much of an excuse. I just haven't felt moved to do much. I think maybe the rainy weather has been one component getting me down; although I'm not out in it, the darkness of the day does get to me after a while.

Anyway, I had this reference photo I liked, of Jenell del Cid looking crazed or freaked out or something, not sure what, except that the whites of her eyes were definitely a component! So I decided to journey back to 2019 when I took the class with Deb Weiers that got me started on portrait-mania, and do Jenell's slightly goofy expression in the bright colors of Daler Rowney inks in non-realistic colors.

Although I managed to draw her with a fair amount of accuracy in terms of the shape of her eyes, nose, and mouth and their relation to one another, I completely lost the head-tilt that made the expression more extreme, so she merely looks a little startled, as opposed to the crazed vibe for which I was aiming. I don't know how I managed to actually tilt her head in the opposite direction and yet keep her face shape and all the features in synch, but I did. (This is one of those times when one simple angled pencil line would have made a big difference!)

Anyway, I somewhat made up for the lack of extreme emotion with the neon colors I used to paint her; I started out with pencil marks all over the page, just for some interest and texture, and then followed up with spatter, spray, and wash in pink and orange. I let that dry, and then did the drawing with a Uniball pen. I had forgotten how much I like Deb's technique of double line everywhere, so I did that. I took some white gesso and put in some highlights on the forehead, brow line, cheekbones, nose, and chin, and also filled in the whites of her eyes. Then I painted in the face, using the pink and orange and accenting with shades of turquoise and Prussian blue, and then later with a little Payne's Grey. Her eyes are brown; I did Deb's effect of star lines coming out from the pupils, and put in highlights on those and her nose and lips with a white Signo pen.

I played around with some texture on her scarf by adding lines, put some darker shading into the hair and under her chin, backed off the fluorescent lime green of her jacket with a wash of Payne's, and intensified the background with another wash of pink. Last touch was a double-line border around it all.

I considered some trademark stuff of Deb's, like circles around the eyes, or an extended lip line, or even some random spots here and there, but ultimately decided I liked her as a simpler, less wonky but still distinctive character.

"Startled"—Daler Rowney inks, Uniball pen, gesso, on Fluid 140-lb. coldpress watercolor paper, 9x12 inches.