Portraits II: #5

She was the greatest model we've had yet! She kept herself so still yet somehow maintained the intensity of her expression. I wish this painting had turned out better because I really enjoyed painting her. This was one of those pictures I screwed up at the end and couldn't manage to fix in time. She was so pretty.

When I turn the picture sideways or upside down, I can see the features apart from the whole, and I can remember what I really liked about parts of this painting while I was making it. When I step back and look at the whole, I wonder what I was thinking.

She's holding a Union Jack umbrella. I got tired of fixing the stripes as the umbrella shifted, so that's why they're gestured in on top of the previous attempts.

oil on 16x20 cotton duck canvas

New York Academy of Art--Figure Painting

Unfinished painting--

I've been having so much fun painting this semester that I signed up for a Wednesday night 6-wk Continuing Ed painting class at the New York Academy of Art. Yikes--those artists are For REAL. More than half the class had MFAs! Geez--here I've been congratulating myself when what I draw looks like a person. So I took down a lot of notes and tried to keep up.

My teacher was John Wellington. He teaches a style of painting more in the Academic tradition--think Prud'hon, Velasquez, Ingres.... Think underpainting! Think the opposite of everything I've done so far! Think careful and tidy! I thought the opposition to my natural tendencies would be a good challenge.

I'm both impatient and slow, so this approach was pretty much guaranteed to drive me nuts, but I liked learning it a lot.

Because I like to glop paint on so thickly that the underlying layers of paint never show through, I had to change everything I did. I learned a lot. This painting started with a warm brown-red wash, then a semi-transparent grisille--the monochromatic painting/drawing of the model in cool Viridian green. Then a semi-transparent pinkish glaze on top of that for the flesh tone, but, as you can see in the extended arm or the belly area of the portrait above, you have to let the green underneath show through!

It's all in blending the edges.

Which is to say, it's all in the materials. I learned how to use medium, what round badger brushes are good for, and the amazing difference that expensive paints can make in this kind of painting. Also, I learned the cheap cotton duck canvases I've been using are crap. This painting is on portrait linen, and it was very very nice and smooth to work on. I can't afford to make it a habit yet. I may try painting on gessoed paper--it's cheaper and I learned how to prepare it in this class.

Portraits II: #4

She's wearing a vest made of purple fur--zowee!

Still trying hard to pay attention. I think it's helping. A lot. I felt like the underlying sketch drew itself, it seemed so clear where I should put the next lines. The model had a certain way of sitting and presenting herself and I felt like I got lucky with representing that inner part. The likeness is pretty good too--I mean, for me.

(I'm really excited when it looks like the person. I do understand that this is the bare minimum base-level expectation most people have for portraits, but it still seems like an unexpected miracle when it happens for me.)

I'm happier with the drawing component of this portrait than with the painterly aspects. There's not a lot of volume. But then I also like flatness of the paint in the arms.... There's just a lot more I wanted to do in the face. I got distracted by the background. The chroma was too high. I'd painted it pure cadmium red, which resembles red-orange nail polish. Love the color but it made the background jump in front of the central figure. I toned it down with an entire mini-tube of magenta on top. I was really happy at the time with how closely the red background ended up matching the real-life red backdrop, but now I wish I'd divided those 3 hours over the rest of the painting.