Friday, August 31, 2012

Aug 31st: Graphite Portrait

 Almost done with the first kid!  Today I didn't do much in the way of the face.  A few adjustments to shading.  But the main thing that really changed the face was the left cheek line.  I noticed that his face was a little too round and he therefore looked too young.  So I brought the line in and I think it looks considerably better. 
The hat was the easiest part by far.  Taking only about 5 minutes to finish.  Luckily for me, there wasn't a lot of detail there.  But there's a considerable amount everywhere else.  His necklace appears to be puka shells or something of that nature.  Abandoning my general need to draw bead by bead, I made light and dark lines at regular intervals, added highlights and made random pencil lines to give the illusion of uneven, thin beads.  It was surprisingly simple. 
Tomorrow I have to finish the many creases of his white shirt and I'll be on to the next kid in line!
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Thursday, August 30, 2012

Aug 30th: Graphite Portrait



Made some progress today.  He went from goofy looking to almost like the picture.  Almost.  I did a lot of work on the nose and teeth today.  Teeth are always a challenge because you don't want these dark lines in between.   They'll look creepy and just weird.   The best way is to imply separate teeth with subtle shading and gum line. 
The nose is an issue because of the angle.  I don't want to make it look huge which is a real possibility at this angle.  The trick is shading it right. 
I added bushiness to the eyebrows and re-positioned the laugh lines.   I also chose to add freckles even though they aren't visible in the picture.  I just know he has them and it wouldn't be him without freckles.   My thoughts of completing a kid every two days are gone!  Oh well. 
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Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Aug 29th: Graphite Portrait




Once again I embark on a graphite adventure.   Yes I love my tried and true pencils.  This one will be different because I think it'll be done in my new record time. 
This is my first "frankenstien" portrait.  This is when artists splice together one or more pictures for reference.  Luckily, i didn't have to do much manipulation to get the photos the same size.  Then...scissors and scotch tape.  Voila. 
So of course, I started with a basic outline drawn with an H graphite.
Then I picked the kis on the right to start with.  He's the only one I know and can probably get his drawing closer than the others because of this fact.  I then marked the darkest shades and kept the highlights untouched. 
Smudged all around the face with a tissue (man I miss my chamios) to get closer to skin tone.  Right off I can tell his nose is gonna give me issues.  But I'll worry about that tomorrow. 


To end the night, I went over the darks with a 4B and defined the eyes.  Much more to come tomorrow.  I'm going to try and complete the drawing with 2 days per kid.  I think I can do it!

Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Aug 28th: Pen, Acrylic and Watercolor


Today I felt the need to do something non-commital for myself.   Hence: Boba Fett. 
I had all these neon acrylics and no idea what to do with them.  As with all comic art, this didn't take more than an hour or two.  Drew it in pen.  Painted in the lines.  Comic art is fun.  If you mess up, just keep scribbling until it looks good.  Side note: acrylics and watercolors totally go together.  And neon paint is awesome.   That is all.
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Sunday, August 26, 2012

Aug 26th: Finished Portrait in Oil Paint



It's done!  Yay!  Oh man did I have the hardest time stopping.  I kept finding issues all over the place.  There's still things that I want to fix after all of it.  But I told myself, you'd better stop or you're going to mess it up.  If I had infinite time and infinite patience, I would fix the mouth for the billionth time.  Since I was working with a wallet sized picture, I found it helpful to take a picture of my painting with my phone and then compare the two that way.  Sometimes the size of the thing distorts what I'm trying to compare.  According to my comparing, the mouth is still too narrow and needs to go out to the right slightly.  But... that's the only major defect on the face. 

I had problems painting hair.  It was easy enough to create fine, wispy hair.  That only requires a lot of smudging.  But here, even though his hairline is receding, the hair in the back is still thick enough.  My husband pointed this out to me last night.  Just when I thought I was done.  So what I did was take a fan brush that was slightly damaged with the bristles all splayed every which way and dip one end in flesh tone and the other in the hair color.  I then painted hairs over and over and over.  I'd paint them, then blend them.  Paint and blend, paint and blend.  Then I made sure that I put those wispy hairs back in but only at the crown of his head.  I needed enough strands sticking out to convey hair, but not enough to make his military haircut sloppy looking.  

The background is not smooth for a reason.  I really wanted to do a sort of smudged, artsy feel with it.  I didn't want just a wash looking thing.  To do the background, I used a sponge brush and blotched white and brown paint everywhere, concentrating the darks to the edge and the whites toward the center.  Once I got my smudge fix, I let it dry for a few hours to thicken and I blended the smudges with a medium scruffy brush.  I like the background.  All I have left to do is wait for it to dry and varnish it.  After the varnishing, I'll find an awesome frame and it'll be my grandpa's birthday present in September.  I'm scared to give it to him, but I hope once I get the perfect frame, this trial and error of a painting will look decent.  

All in all, I learned a lot about oil colors through this painting.  It's best to get placement and separate the darks and lights right at the beginning.  Otherwise, problems arise later on and it's harder to correct mistakes.  Oils are all about layers.  I hope the next painting will be even better.  For now, I have to take a break from painting and focus on 2 drawings that others have ordered.  Moving on!

Friday, August 24, 2012

Aug 24th: Portrait in Oil Paint




So close!   I'm in the home stretch.   Today I started with the rank bars on the uniform.   Originally, I had these bars pretty brightly colored.   But I didn't like the bright colors in contrast with his uniform.   Also, I really do want the focus to be on the face and not so much the little details of the painting.   It's important that they're there, but I feel they need to be muted.  So I blended the edges, darkened the colors and re-sharpened some lines.  I wanted to imply more than paint hard lines.  
I then made the fade out at the bottom much darker and prominent.   Then began the process of painting the background.   It wasn't too difficult choosing a color.  I wanted something warm colored that would complement his skin tone and make the painting more welcoming.   So I choose a burnt umber with a bit of yellow and black mixed in.  Using a large, soft brush, I was able to blend easily.  This is just ground work and the colors will be more defined and the gradual fading will be blended better upon completion.  
Tomorrow should be finishing day!  Some detailing and hair.  Some final touches and it'll be complete.   I'm excited!
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Thursday, August 23, 2012

Aug 22nd: Portrait in Oil Paint

I think it's important for me to say that I love my new brush wash.  It's fabulous and the ends of my brushes aren't getting all mushed on the bottom.  Yay! 

Today I focused my attention on two parts.  On the face it was glasses and the ear.  On the uniform it was pretty much everything.  As far as the glasses go, I wanted to make sure that the white line design was visible and straight without being distracting.  I tried to make sure not to make the whites too bright.  Also, the frames themselves were gone over with darkened burnt umber.  They may look black, but to make them pure black would be overwhelming.  I also made sure that all edges were softened around the glasses or it would look too harsh.  The metal bridge gave me some issues. 

As far as the ear goes, I used some of the blending medium I was given.  I find the medium to be thicker than paint thinner and so it doesn't make paint watery.  It simply allows the paint to glide better instead of making it opaque.  It's helpful.  On the ears, I drew lines over the generally placed ones I did previously, noting correct placement. 

Then I darkened the darks, brightened the highlights and blended the rest.


On the uniform, I worked on buttons and such.  All the little things he has pinned on there.  I want these things to be detailed, but I don't want them to distract from his face or be too bright.  The U.S. pins will be the brightest detail, but I've greatly muted the colors on the rest. 

As for the name tag, I struggled with the thought of not even writing the name and planting some sort of amorphous white blob suggesting a name.  But on second thought, I wrote the name. 

I'm not sure how I feel about it... but there it is.  Tomorrow I'll be doing more work on the uniform and tackling his rank bar on the right.  Depending on how many issues I have, I hope to also at least start the background and figure out what color it will be. 


Tuesday, August 21, 2012

August 21st: Portrait in Oil Paint





It's my birthday today blog!  I picked up the paint brush again today after a few days of wanting to burn the portrait.  
What happened was I tried to fix the shading under the nose and ended up using too cool of a color.  I turned the painting green!  Papa looked like a zombie.  Ugh.  I don't even have photographic evidence of this horror, but as you can see, the shading was horrid.
 

Today there was some miracle.  I fixed the color.  Half-fixed the lips (still have to add pigment to the bottom)  and greatly improved the eyes.  Lots of detail work today and highlighting.  At this point, I'm not going to mess with the face much more because I'll run the risk of screwing it up again. 
Tackling the lips, ear and uniform tomorrow.   My birthday present to me was a new brush case, clear finishing varnish and a brush wash. I'm good to go!


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Thursday, August 16, 2012

Aug 16th: Portrait in Oil Paint


 Today was a happier day.  Mostly because I avoided painting anything on the face.  I just focused on the uniform.  I was having issues getting the uniform to look like cloth when I realized that when I have 3 or 4 colors not entirely blended, it works.  Makes it look more... artsy.  And good.  
Started adding more details like buttons and highlights.   Fun fact:  I found it helpful to turn my painting upside down.  Crazy?  Nope.  Sometimes you get caught up in what you think should be there and not paint what's actually there.  Turning it upside down takes away that compulsion.  Strange.   But it worked for me.


Tomorrow I'm going to try a paint medium meant for blending.  I really hope it helps with my shading dilemma.
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Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Aug 14th: Portrait in Oil Paint



I feel like I'm trapped in an endless cycle of shading, painting over it because it looks bad and shading again.  That's all I've done for 3 days.  I don't know what I'm doing wrong.  I've tried diluting the paint, adding different color combinations, smudging and blending.   The result is still the same.  His face looks dirty. 
When I try to blend it, the shading gets too light and I have to add more.  And back to the same problem of the dirty face.  I'm fighting the compulsion to throw the painting across the room.
I did lengthen the lips.  I don't know how good it looks now, but I changed them.  And worked on the collar area.  But... ugh.  I should just work on the uniform and leave the face til later.
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Monday, August 13, 2012

Aug 13th: Portrait in Oil Paint

Today was a day of struggle and frustration.   Two things that are pretty much inevitable when painting faces.  I'm so close!  But not close enough.   I found myself yelling at my canvas: "Why won't you look like grandpa?! I attempted to darken the shading around the lower half of the face only to find that the colors were off.  The color scheme ended up too cool in shade and needed warmer influence or he was going to look creepy.  So I painted over the whole of it and started again.


 Then using more brown and red hue, I re-applied the shading on the untainted surface.  It looks much better but the mouth is still off.  I know better than to work on a painting when I'm flustered so I absently painted the uniform.   It requires less concentration at the moment.   So that's where I ended tonight.  I hope for better results tomorrow.


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Sunday, August 12, 2012

Aug 12th: Portrait in Oil Paint

Made some real progress on the face today.  For some reason, adding more detail to the glasses made everything look a little better.  I keep layering on shading and facial creases, etc; but it's hard to shade without making his face look dirty.  I don't know why this is.  Maybe it's a blending issue?  Then again, once I get the shading dark enough to my liking, blending it inevitably lightens it up.  My only thought is to maybe wait until the paint dries a bit and then try to darken the shading.  

Main issues:  Jaw line, lips.  Dirty-looking face?  Does it look smudgy?  Maybe I'm too close to the project. I'm getting close, but I want this painting to be as spot-on as it can be.  Close just isn't good enough.  Finally, I stopped fiddling with the face and moved on to his uniform.  Oh man, the color on the uniform is going to be difficult.  I know in my mind that the uniform is a navy blue.  But in this old picture, it's a faded greenish color.  Now, I've based my coloring of the face on the photo, so I must base the uniform color off of it too.  This is one of those instances where it's very important to paint what you see and not paint what you think you see.  


I wish I would have taken this picture from a different angle.  It looks funny because it's too far and tilted to the left.  Better picture tomorrow I swear.  Anyways, my good friend Rudi has brought to my attention that his mouth needs to be lengthened.  So... darker shadows.  Longer mouth.  More work on uniform.  To be continued tomorrow!



Aug 11th: Portrait in Oil Paint

Today I focused on refining the facial features of my painting.  This was especially true for the eyes.  I spent most of my painting time making the eyes even, adding highlights to face and deepening shadows.


With the eyeglasses, I want to imply lenses rather than draw a hard edge around them.  I really don't want any hard lines in this drawing at all.  I think that with the nature of oils, it'll be best to leave things with blurry or soft edges.  

Here you can see that the eyes are even, but the pupils are off.  In dire need of better shading and what's up with his lips?  His hair will be messed up until the very end since I'm doing the background last.  Many more details are needed as well as more layering on the skin.   Every day this looks more and more like my papa.  I think that once I get the face done, Everything else will go quickly.  

Thursday, August 9, 2012

Aug 9th: Portrait in Oil Paint

My title today is less cynical because I've started my oil painting over and I'm much happier.  First off, I bought a new non-stretched out canvas and some gesso spray.  Gesso isn't something that I would have thought of as necessary, but every professional painter seemed to recommend it.  So I bought it.  Anything to make the painting better.  Gesso is basically a primer.  It helps your paint stick and remain vibrant throughout the years.

My approach this time was to not waste paint on background.  I mean, I could paint a perfect background, but 50% of it would eventually be covered up by my main subject.  As someone who is poor, I'm not going to waste the paint.  So I began this one like I've always done my paintings in the past.  I drew on the canvas first.  Just a rough sketch.

Yeah, you can probably barely see that... but there's a sketch there.  Then, knowing that oil paint doesn't dry, I had to be strategic about where I would begin painting.  So I began in the middle.  That way I wouldn't be smearing paint all over the place with my hand.  No color is going to be added to this painting without some yellow or brown mixed in.  No true white.  No true black.  It'll look too bold and not realistic.  I started with the eyes and worked my way out.  I used a very general color for everything, knowing that I'll be adding layers on later. 


As you can see, just getting the general idea here.  Making sure things are the right proportion and in the right place really.  I must say, even though this approach has been very similar to my acrylic paintings, I LOVE how oils blend.  They're versatile and leave so much room to play around with colors and shading.

I lengthened the mouth a bit, narrowed one of the eyes (still working on the other obviously) and added a bit more shading.  I would like to add that all this was achieved in a little over an hour.  That, my friends, is quite the feat for me.  Normally, you give me an hour and I'll have an eye done.  Maybe.  Crazy!  I might do some more tonight depending on how motivated I feel but definitely back at it tomorrow.  I really like where this is going. 


Wednesday, August 8, 2012

Aug 8th: More Misadventures in Oil Paint

I woke up this morning and thought:  Now that's one ugly background.  Which, it was.  So... I worked on this stupid background pretty much all afternoon.

Firstly, I realized that more paint and less paint thinner the better.  Since oil paints take FOREVER to dry, when you try to use a brush that has too much thinner on it, you end up thinning out the paint that's already on the canvas.  Ugh.  I also realized that my brushes, while beautiful and professional, are just way too small to tackle something like a large background.  But, nothing could be done about my brush size for the time being.  So, I used a technique where I load up my brush and just blob it on the canvas bit by bit and blend it after.  This, strangely, worked.

There's what it looked like before blending.  It looks awful and horrid.  But... after you blend...

Layering seemed to be working.  I like where the background is going and the color choice but in the end, I found that the looseness of the canvas is messing with my work and looks bad.  The paint keeps getting caught up in the creases.  I also think that the background color for this particular painting needs to be lighter.  My grandpa's uniform is just too dark of a color to stand out on such a dark military green background.  For now, I'm keeping this canvas and background for a future project I have in mind.  I'm going to take it in to get re-stretched.  Tomorrow, I'm going to buy a new canvas.

I don't consider this scrapping to be a complete loss.  Through trial and error I learned more about how oil paints behave.  I've also picked up several books from the library to see if they offer anything that might help my technique when I start over. 

Aug 7th: Misadventures in Oil Paint

I'm starting a new project today.  One that is purely experimental because I really don't know what I'm doing.  But, the only way I can learn is to try so here goes.  

I'm beginning an oil painting.  A portrait of my grandfather.  Yes, I know I was about to draw it, but I changed my mind.  If this painting ends up sucking, I'll just draw it like I originally planned.  Judging by the status of his hair, I'd say this faded masterpiece must be from the late 70's or early 80's.  This photo is regrettable because it's so damn faded.  But, since I need the picture to reference color, I'm going to paint it as close to the original as possible.  Maybe I'll choose to liven up the color scheme later.  But some mono-chromatic thing might be good for the seriousness of the portrait.

Anywho.  I assembled my brushes, paints, new palette and paint thinner.  The paint thinner scares me.  Anything I can't dilute in water makes me nervous.  

You can see in the picture just how loose the canvas is stretched.  A potential problem.  I don't know if this is because I've had the canvas for a while, or because it's been exposed to the ridiculous heat in my car.  I'm going to try and work with it anyway.  

Not knowing how to begin, I tried what I knew.  I tried diluting the paint with thinner and spreading it on in a wash.  Meh.  The paint didn't stick.  It kept running.  I thickened it up, but still used some paint thinner and that seemed to work.  When doing portraits, I like my backgrounds to be darker on the edges and lighter in the center.  I believe this creates an atmosphere.  Plus, the background color in the photo is just horrid.  The only colors I used for the background were black, white and yellow.  In oil paints black+yellow= green somehow.  

Blending with oils is fascinating.  I found the most effective way is to make short, blotchy strokes and then blend them first horizontally with canvas-wide strokes.  Then the same way vertically.  I did this over and over and over until I got the color gradient that I wanted.  I left the painting for now because I feel it needs more layers and I'm just not in the mood for more layers tonight.  

I hope you can tell from this picture that over-blending with the dry brush technique will stretch the paint too thin.  When this happens, you can see canvas through the paint. That sucks.  Therefore, layers.  Many more layers to go.