Sunglasses

I still don't think I've mastered hair, but I definitely think I'm getting better at it.  Ok, ok, it's a slow go to get better, but as Dr. Leo Marvin said to Bob Wiley, "Baby Steps."

My big regret with this painting is that the shadow on her cheek looks a little to linear.  I tried to fix it, but it didn't quite work out and I didn't want to futz too much.

Face, Finished

Stop me if I've said this before.... I hate hair.  Hair is so hard to paint.  I feel like I am never gonna get it.  I thought I might have been onto something with the hair on this painting, but then.... no.  What you see on this is mostly done with watercolor pencil.    I put on a basic color of the hair, then tried putting in some detail with the brush. Err, grrrr, huh.  Terrible!  So then I tried to fix it a bit with watercolor pencil.   I guess that it isn't too bad, but I wouldn't say that it's good either.

Ok, lets get off the hair and try to look a little more critically.  I tried to get a little color in the whites of the eyes.  and I guess I did that, but they still look flat.  The lips fell a bit flat too.  Maybe a bit of highlight with my favorite white pencil would help that.  I don't know.  I do like how the ball of the nose is.  Can't believe that that is my favorite part of the painting.  LOL.   I  just think thats kinda funny.
Well, hope you enjoy it.

Lips Incorporated

Ok, so last week I did a little study on eyes.  This week I am doing a small study on lips.  I had a few minutes at lunch so I quickly drew out some lip shapes, and then splashed on some paint.

Oh, and the flower was an extra doodle that just worked its way there.  No real reason why.

I saw a quick video on how to make lips a little more realistic, and thought I would give it a chance.  Basically it went like this.
1. Draw two circles separated by a third (invisible) circle, all of them the same size.
2. draw a center line where the lips meet.  The line should be slightly raised in the middle.
3. Draw a third circle the same size as the first two below the center of the mouth, as distant from the line as the two circles above it.
4. Make an arc just above and between the two circles above the mouth.
5. connect the arc to the ends of the mouth and connect the two ends of the mouth by drawing a line around the circle on the lower lip.

TA DA - now you should have two basic lips.

I guess it helped a little.  I don't know how great a help it was, but it did get me drawing and sketching.

Now, I tired to put my eyes and mouth together.  I know its not a great painting.  Remember, I'm sketching quite quickly.  I just kind of guessed at the proportions of nose to mouth to eyes, so that might be a bit off.  I'm still not happy with the eyes.  More practice!!

Another Portrait

Ok, here is another portrait.  I think I did ok on this one, but probably not great.  I like some of her skin.  But in other places, not so fond of it.  Hair is always a problem.  It's tough.  This was additionally tough given that she is a blonde.  How do I differentiate her hair enough from her skin to make you notice .

I liked the picture when I originally saw it, and still do.  Face, hand, arms and hair.  All the things I wanted to work on..... And all the things I think I still need to work on.

I do think the eyes are better.  The problem I had with this painting was trying to determine how dark to make the eyebrows and lashes.  The picture that I painted from has dark eyebrows and lashes, but they look too dark for some reason.

Well, I still think it is a good effort and I think I learned some really good things from painting it.  Hope you enjoy it.

One Final Portrait

This painting for sale 9x12 $30

Ok, so I think I have saved the best for last.  Trying to pull together all the elements of a portrait that I have learned this month.  The eyes, the hair, the proportions  all of it.  I am certain this is my best work to date.  Laying down a bit of color on wet, or damp paper and blending seems to be the way I am gonna paint from now on.  There are plenty of artists that can user watercolors in only one layer, or two at most, but I think I have learned that that isn't me.  I need to put down a lot of layers in what I am doing.  This painting has a lot of them.  The background itself is two or 3 layers, then in order to ge the highlights on the face, I started out really light, and I bet I've got 5 or 6 on the face and that many on the neck too.

Here is a little bit of an intermediate stage.  Sorry I don't have one where I had just the drawing.  notice that I did paint into the area where the hair will be.  That is so that if you are gonna see through the hair at all, I want you to see some of the background color.

Here is the original image.  You can see and judge for yourself if I've done a good job or not.

Hope you all enjoy the painting, as you know, I had a great time painting it.