Faces (not mine) WIP

Submitted for your viewing pleasure are a couple of WIPs.  I did this much last night and will probably spend much of the next few nights finishing them up.

I really just started with slapping some paint on, trying to block in some color, Then I remember that I stink at painting hair, and thought I should try somehow to make the hair more realistic  that in paintings past.  I can't tell you how many strokes I have in the hair on these two.  And I'm no where near done!!

Well, Tonight I will probably work more on the hair, some shading on the faces and maybe the shirt.   Then finish the hair and the background.   I don't know, I'll have to play it by ear, and see what hits me when I get back out to the studio.

Daughter

Ok, well, I had good intentions with this.  Unfortunately, it didn't turn out quite like I had hoped.  He has a kind od smashed in head, and a squatty face.  Hmmmm.  Where did It all go wrong.

I thought that a lot of this painting actually went right.  It's unfortunate that her hair really spoiled a lot of the painting.  I threw a blue background on, with a little salt, just to try it out.  Hmm, I might have to try another portrait.  Hopefully, whomever I paint will look better than this.

Portrait of a Friend of Mine

I've been trying to work back slowly into this watercolor thing, and I like painting birds but.....I guess I just needed to do something a bit more.  

In addition to posting my artwork here, on my art blog site, I post to G+.  Somewhere on G+ I ran into a fellow artist and contributor named Kelly.  I didn't really wanna paint a picture of myself (tried it, bad subject matter that turned into a bad portrait), but I wanted to paint a portrait.  Kelly was gracious enough to allow me to paint a picture of her.  Two days later and this is what I came up with.

BTW, if you are interested in some good artwork and an uplifting look at life, check out her blog site.

So, I think I'm getting a little better with hair, though its a long slow process.  And I guess I can say the same about portraits in general.  Looking back at the first portraits I've done, I see some really rudimentary work.  This one, while not a Rembrandt by any stretch is miles ahead of what that one was.

I feel like I am not nearly as afraid to leave a hard edge on the paper.  I used to be afraid to do that and had to smooth all the edges before I could move on.  It made it an extremely long process to do anything.  Like probably 2 or 3 times as along to paint any given picture.  Yes, on this I did smooth a few edges out.  I didn't feel as though I should leave all hard edges, but a few weren't too bad.  It's a little unfortunate that I used the mixed media paper instead of watercolor paper because the water kept pooling and made it harder than I think it had to be.  But I just thought that with as hot as its been here, the watercolor paper would dry too fast.

Here is the picture I used as a reference.  I had a little trouble with the shadows in her hair on the right hand side of her head.  If I were to do this one agian, I would try to get that a bit better, but I'm happy with it.  I think the representation of Kelly is pretty good.  And what is more important is that when I sent this picture to her, she liked it.  In the end, I think that is more important than producing a great work of art.  I got the enjoyment of painting it, and she got the enjoyment of seeing it.  For me that's enough.

Hope you all enjoyed this as much as I did.  Enjoy.

Speed Painting With My Daughter (Now with Sparkle)

I love painting with my daughter.  Like me, she makes up stories about the things she paints.  (She got that from me, and I in turn, got it from Bob Ross.)  Her stories are always outrageous and seldom have any place in reality.  Perhaps thats the imagination of a 5 year old.  I could just sit next to her and listen to her stories all day long, but I'm lucky enough to be able to paint with her while being regaled with these outlandish stories.

This past Saturday we were sitting at the craft table painting when we were just finishing out first paintings when she decided that fruit would be a good thing to paint.  I would quickly sketch out a couple of pictures (one for her and one for me) and we would set out to paint.  She got to the point where fruit was a solid color with a green leaf all lobbied onto the paper in one gleeful moment.  We both ended by laughing and painting furiously.

Then she remembered that she has glitter watercolors.  We had to revisit and add the glitter (she calls it shimmer or sparkle.)  The following was my contribution to our time together.

Apples and cherries were the first pictures we did.
 

I didn't have time to draw my own grapes, so I just freehanded them.

This peach has a generous amount of shimmer on it.  I guess it is substituted for fuzz


No, a chili isn't really a fruit, but she suggested and I obliged

Second attempted portrait.

First portrait attempted.

Strawberries definitely have shimmer.

A tree to end out fun for the day.

Just a practice painting.  This is actually on the back side another painting in my sketch  book.  I was never intending this to be the greatest painting in the world, rather, I wanted to get some more experience with hair.  I think this hair is slightly better than some of the hair that I have done in the past.  I don't however think this is anywhere close to where I want to be.

The skin on her face got a little dark, I'll have to work on that too.

One thing I am happy about is that I drew this without any reference points or tracing.  I know its not the most technical thing i the world, but whenever I can do that and it looks like what it is supposed to look like, I am happy.

Enjoy.

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.

Face WIP

Trying to get back into painting again after a month off.  I think I've said that before.  And I don't really have any specific thing that I want to paint, so on a whim I decided to paint a face.  I've seen lots of portraits that look absolutely fantastic, and then I look at mine and they usually, well.... don't look fantastic.  The best luck I've had with faces is many really light, transparent layers.  Usually, I don't have the patience for that kind of nonsense.

For me it seems like I put on a few light layers, here, a little there..... then.... BAMMO!!  Whoops, too thick, or too heavy, or too opaque.  Then I've got a painting that looks like a 3rd grader did it.  Hmmm.  well, what to do?  Maybe with a little  work, and a lot of luck, I can conquer that whole, glob the paint on thing.  

With this painting, I've got lots of layers on it.  Really thin!  I put on some, then take some off, then put some on, then try to make the gradient go to nothing.  Then repeat.  Even having done this, I've made some major mistakes, but thats ok.  I don't pretend to be perfect, and I certainly don't pretend that my paintings are.

I've forsaken the brush on this picture in lieu of watercolor pencil on several places on this painting.  I'm sure you will be able to pick the places out quite easily.  Again, that's ok.   This is a WIP (Work In Progress).  I don't know if the watercolor pencil will still be visible when I am totally finished or not.  If they are, good, if they aren't, that's good too.

Well, I haver too much sometimes.  Err, well, maybe I don't.  Maybe you all want to hear about this.  No, definitely havering.  With that..... I'm out.

Laura

This is a portrait of an on-line friend.  She had posted a sepia tone portrait of herself, and for whatever reason (probably that it was in sepia tones and easy to see the highlights and shadows) I really felt that I could paint it and do  a good job of it.

I used VanDyke (I don't think it's named after Dick) brown, yellow ochre, alizarin crimson, raw umber and burnt sienna.  Starting with a sketch of her, i started adding color to her face.  A LOT of layers.  I basically put on a tiny bit of paint, then smoothed out the edges so there wouldn't be any hard edges.  Then move onto another spot and do the same.  Once an are dried I went back and did another layer.  I think at its deepest, there are 6 layers.  It makes for a glowing painting.  I did it this way because in the past I have put the colors on in thicker layers and it has just looked flat.

I did use colored pencil on the hair.  Hair is really tough for me (and probably for everyone.  I guess the only way to get better at hair is to keep practicing.  My only regret with this painting is that I used such soft paper, and it didn't like the constant washing.

All in all I think I did a pretty good job.  Laura I hope you like it.  Everyone els too.  Enjoy.

The Next Drawing

Ok, here is the next drawing.  I even managed to erase the gridwork over her face.  I know you need to put dark next to light when drawing.  It helps to add form to what you are drawing.  I tried it with this.  Not sure if it is working for me or not.  Well, I think this is a good effort none the less.

Lunchtime Drawing

So, I am determined to become better at drawing.  So, today during lunch, I drew a face.  Here it is.  As you can see I used a grid to make sure I had all the proportions and everything right, and set apart to draw it.

Well, as you can see, it helped, but not enough to make it look great.  I guess there is still a lot more to learn.  I'm gonna be sticking with this whole grid thing for a while at least in order to figure out proportions and what not.  I've got a grid draw on the photo I drew this from so you may see this one again at some point.

Hope you enjoy looking at this slightly cross-eyed girl.  lol

The Best Subject Matter

Well, I have finally found the perfect subject to paint, and if you cannot tell, it's me!   LOL.  Ok, I was busily pouring through the internetweb looking for a picture to paint, when I thought to myself, "Self, I think I ought to paint myself just to see if I come out with something recognizable.  

I think what I came out with it something that is a little closer to a police sketch than a photograph.  Actually, now that I am looking closer at this, I look more like Data from Star Trek than a real person.   I'm not totally disappointed with it since I can still recognize myself, but I think i need a little more work before I go into the portrait business.

I tried hard to get a lot of subtle color into my face.  I don't know if you can see them all but there are reds, greens, blues, purples, and yellows in my face.  All of these together help to give a lot of texture to my skin.  I wasn't going to put on any background, but I had some leftover paint on my palette and thought I would just use them rather just cleaning them off.





Some of you are going to look at this and tell me I don't quite have the eyes right, or the eyebrows or the mouth or ......  It doesn't matter.  Please don't tell me I didn't make an exact copy of this picture.  I know that.  This is a practice exercise and thats all.

You all might have to get used to seeing some more pictures of me.  Ha ha ha ha ha.

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.

Another Face

Another face.   I think I just missed the mark on this one.  I may have to go back and tweak it just a bit.  I think the eyes are a bit better that previous pictures, but i don't think the scan is doing it justice.

I tried a little something new with the hair.  I for the most part it worked out.  The hair on her right hand side I think looks good.  On the left below her ear could use some work.  I love her smile, and I'm willing to bet that my auntie Roberta will like her teeth.

I think that I am gonna go back and rework this one a bit.  Maybe put a little more shadow on her forehead under he hair, and on her left cheek.  you might see this one painting re-posted at a later time.

This time, again, I used the same technique that I am hoping to use in most of my paintings from now on.  I've no idea what it is called, other than wet-in-wet painting (but it is not strictly wet-in-wet).  I do a lot more than just that.

Well, for now, this is what I've got.  I still have a few more portraits to paint, so be on the lookout.

Another Portrait

This painting for sale 9x12 $30

First off, I think this looks a bit odd because I didn't paint quite enough of his neck, but what the hay.  I painted this in the way I am gonna try to do all my paintings from now on.  I got the paper wet, and then let the paint do what it do on the paper.  I actually have about 5 or 6 layers of paint on most of this.  I don't know that I'll be using that many layers all the time, but I'll definitely be using two or three.

I didn't want to overdo the beard and hair for fear of doing too much too it.  I still might go back and draw in some individual hairs with a pen, but basically, what you see is what you are always gonna get.  I might go back and make the eyebrows a bit bigger too.  But again, I might just wanna leave it this way.

Here is the picture that I started with.  Sorry, hat I forgot to take it as just a drawing.  You can see part of the first layer of paint, though.

Here is the picture mostly done.  Interestingly, you can see that I took the picture with his beard just a bit wet. As the paint dries it lightens up, so you can see that it is much darker here.  Also, he looks a bit devilish with no eyeballs.

I had a great time painting this one, hope you have a great time viewing it.

Another Portrait, and maybe more to come

This painting for sale. 8x10 $20

Once again I have a challenge to paint portraits.  I guess I could try it a little more conventionally but... sometimes you just don't wanna do it that way.  If I had done this the conventional way, then you would know what everything was supposed to look like exactly.  You would immediately look and see flaws in the picture, and they would stick in your mind.

Painting this way, you see the colors, and the the shapes, but not necessarily what you mind tells you you should be seeing.  There is a little leeway for me to make a few mistakes.  Actually, I think it makes it a much more dramatic picture also.

Here is the picture I started with.  You can see the drawing and that I had just started to paint.  There are a lot of coats of paint on top of the one that is down on this picture.

Actually, I should say that I really like to paint this way.  It takes longer to paint any particular picture, but I think its more fun, and I think the result really looks nice.  I don't know if I could do something like a landscape this way, but for defined shapes, I could do this all day.

Here is the picture that I used for the basis for my painting.  I still might go back and splotch in some freckles to give her face a little more detail, but if I don't do anything, I'm totally still satisfied.

Oh, and yes, like the headline says, expect mor portraits.

Portrait

Ok, so, the art site to which I subscribe holds monthly competitions.  This months topic is portraits.  I've never really done portraits, and as such wanted to give this a go.  I did a quick search for portraits on google and a portrait similar to this popped up.  I hope I did it justice.  There are a few things I really like about it.  One is, I think the shading on the shirt is great.  with just a few strokes of color, it totally looks like there is a collar on the shirt and a few button holes.

The nose was intersting to do.  I didn't really draw a nose, just figured if I shaded everything but the nose, it would have to stand out and look like a nose.  I'm not about to say I nailed it, but I think I had a great first effort.  What do you all think, leave a comment.  Thanks, and as always, enjoy.

Catching up with some things

I haven't done much painting lately because work has been so busy.  I am desperately trying to  reclaim my lunch hour and painting.  I thought I would step back and do something simple to start back up, so I did the orange door.  It, of course, didn't turn out like I wanted.  But I still like it, there are some good elements there.  Then I did the little boat, and again, good and bad.  I've been wanting to do some different kinds of paintings for some time, and my friend Carrie was nice enough to volunteer for this painting.  Let me know what you think of these.