Portraits II: Homework Assignments

Miniature Self-Portrait. (from passport photo)
I realize it doesn't look like me.
Last semester's version was so much worse! I think I may have thrown it away in disgust.
This one almost killed me. I didn't have the right brushes and the one I bought was still too big. I ended up using flat toothpicks. Toothpicks make terrible brushes for oil paintings, by the way.
oil, 2x2 on wood


Life-Size Lips assignment--from a magazine photo
oil, 4x5 canvas board

Life-Size Nose assignment. Yes, it's my nose.
oil, 4x5 canvas board
This poor little painting--it's darkish greenish brownish because I tried to speed up the drying time by baking it in the oven. Bad idea! It darkened all the colors and made it smell like toasted linseed oil. I won't be doing that again.


last semester's Life-Size Nose assignment. Yes, it's my nose again.
oil, 4x5 canvas board

Life-Size Eye (from magazine image)
oil, 4x5 canvas board


Group Portrait assignment--from People Magazine photo
oil, 6x8 canvas board

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.

Portraits II: #3

Another great model. I think he told me that he's recently retired and started a second career as an artist's model, and this was one of his first jobs.

You might not be able to tell from this painting, but I've started to feel like I've turned a corner with this painting and the last one. The drawing is coming a lot easier. I'm starting to be able to get a pretty good likeness without so many initial wrong turns, and the model liked this painting, which made me overly pleased with myself.

I think I'm doing better work because I'm concentrating harder. Up until this painting, I've done mostly joyriding with a paintbrush in hand and then tried to fix up the worst mistakes. I've switched my working method over to telling myself "Pay Attention! Pay attention. Pay Attention!" and have tried to be more deliberate.

Portraits II: #2

Great model--I love the Manic Panic hair. She's a burlesque dancer under the stage name Dirty Martini, which surprised me only because she seems so petite. Really petite. I don't understand how her professional photographs make her look so zaftig.

I don't think I got a very good likeness--lost it in the eyes and couldn't fix it before we had to stop--but the longer it hangs drying on my wall, the more I like the look.

Portraits II: #1

I don't like this one at all.

Surprise! I finally put in the pictures for painting class

Soon I'll take some pictures of all the stuff I made in the collage class and fill in the gaps in this blog. I don't know exactly when I'll do this, but probably when I'm supposed to be doing something else.

Portraits - Eleven/Twelve: #6 Grand Inquisitor? Star Trek?

This is the last one!
We're back to my least favorite thing, 'lighting from below,' but this time there's a spooky red filter over the lamp. Our teacher gave us a big hint--the red parts will look like they're reflecting red light only if all the rest of the painting is made darker. So we just adjusted all the other paint colors down a few steps darker from real life. This is the first time he made us paint something different from what we could actually see. Pretending it's a little bit darker isn't that hard, but it felt like an uphill jog. My brain is even more out-of-shape than the rest of me.

Portraits - Nine/Ten: #5

We were required to include the hands this time, and the background got a little crazier (child's patterned bedsheet--those are toy cars). Also he never put his hand back in the same place twice. Too bad I can't blame the tiny weird ear problem on him. I didn't notice what was going on up there until we were leaving.

Portraits - Eight: #4 greenie queenie

Portraits - Seven: #4 wk 1

I'm not sure if I have a photo from day 1 of this painting. If I knew where one was, I wouldn't try to substitute yet another "word-picture." Enjoy! This is the best blog!
The model is a short, roundish middle-aged woman with long, thin hair and glasses. She is my favorite model so far because she holds herself very still and resumes the exact same position after her breaks. She had been asked to come up with a theatrical or dramatic pose, so she brought a cane along--she took her seat as if it were a throne, and rested her hands on the cane as though it were a scepter, and she did a Queen Victoria moue thing with her mouth.

Drawing - Six:

Drawing NYC - Four:

Portraits - Six: Third One

This is Week 2 for the painting described below (last wk).

I forgot to write down her name. It doesn't really look like her anyway.

Drawing - Five:

Drawing NYC - Three:

Portraits - Five: "warm underpainting" homework + starting portrait 3

I think I took a snapshot of this, maybe on my phone. So photo TK, maybe. I don't know where I put the homework. Some blog, huh?

Here's what you missed so far: the model is seated on a platform slightly above us. She is pretty. She is lit from below. It is already too hard and I want to stop and go home. She has a prominent nose and chin, so they cast shadows upward on her face. I should've pushed the Toulouse-Lautrec-ishness, but I'm more at the slavish copying-stage of my artistic development, and I let the competing fluorescent lighting on my side of the room cancel out most of those shadows and sap out the drama. That's also what the bright white reflections around her cheekbone are supposed to be about. No, those aren't whiskers, they're what remain of the dramatic footlights! Same thing with the uni-brow. See you next wk.

Drawing - Four:

Drawing NYC: No Class

Happy Columbus Day!