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.