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.