A note to Christy Sich

The artist to who I owe the pleasure of painting is Christy Sich, see previous post. You can see the painting she did of me on the dsfdf blog. I'd like to say to Christy, you did an excellent job on getting my likeness, my daughter agrees! What medium did you work in? I know it was quite a challenge to work from the photo because the view was from slightly above me, which I know getting the perspective correct was probably difficult, but you mastered it well. I hope to see more of your work on Karin's future challenges. Also, thanks for providing me with a great reference photo for this portrait swap.

Portriat Swap Update

To help me improve on my next portrait, I plan to put down the process, and then to critique the final painting. I wish I could align the images horizontally as it would make the mistakes more visible but that could take me another hour just to figure that out, computer geek I am NOT. So, here goes...

First I used photoshop to make some additional images, one b & w, one lightened, and one narrowed down to a few extreme different colors. I do this to help me simplify the image. Which if painting from life would be akin to squinting at the person.

A charcoal drawing was done to try and get correct proportions and establish light and darks.

To this I started using color, and this is where I usually lose the initial drawing. About three hours into this stage I completely wiped out what I had done. This left me with a mid tone of muddy color but some of the dark charcoal lines of the features remained.

Now striving to keep things more simple I started again using fewer colors.

After posting the photograph and my painting, I have noticed some obvious errors, which I have told myself before to take the time to photograph my work at it's almost- completed- stage and compare it to the photograph before calling it done. OK, so maybe I'll listen to myself next time.

The errors I have noticed are as follows; the face is too long, I have lost the slight tilt of the head, which leads to the horizontal alignment to the eyes being too straight, they should have a slant down to our left. The alignment of the bottom portion of her nose, and her mouth should follow this same slant. I do not have the correct shape for her left eyebrow. I should have gone darker on the shadow side of the face.

What I will take from this is to keep adjusting for correct proportions and line-angles of the facial features before I add detail and more color.

I have to say when I paint from life I find I am better at getting the likeness of the individual. Which is why I am so grateful to have the time to go to the Atlanta Artists Center and have three hours to paint from a model once a week.

Portrait Swap

pastel on kitty wallis paper

12 in. x 16 in.

This was the painting I did for Karin Jurick's year end challenge on her different strokes from different strokes blog. The participants have about three weeks to paint a portrait from a photo of another artist. This year 180 artists participated. It was fun doing the painting and then seeing all the other paintings on her blog. I have enjoyed following her blog and participating in the challenges when I have time.

Owl Moon Series

Owl Moon Series I
pastel

Owl Moon Series II
pastel

Wild Birds Unlimited, a store selling bird feeders, bird seed, etc. had a showing of a few owls. Among the three were a Great Horned Owl, a Barred Owl, and a Screech Owl. I took many photos but only a few were good enough to use for reference. I hope to do a few more paintings in addition to the two displayed here. What interesting animals they are!

Another portrait commission completed

Karen and Ava

oil

Father and Son commission completed

After another week of drying, this portrait will be ready for a final coat of varnish.

Portrait commission almost completed

Father and Son portrait commission
oil

This is a portrait in oil that I am very near completing. Some of my thoughts on what still needs to be accomplished are as follows; I need to soften some of the lines and edges in the faces. The blue shirts still need some more definition in the folds and the NY emblems need to be "cleaned up" along the edges. The background probably will not change much. I will also work a bit more on the father's beard and mustache. I am fairly happy with the skin tones at this point. I will post the completed portrait.