Back to the Drawing Board

I recently finished another colored pencil portrait.  It was refreshing to get back to a little detail work after switching gears and painting in oils for awhile.  This portrait was a commission for a client who wanted a portrait of her granddaughter for a 16th birthday surprise.  Once again,  I did something I don't normally do ......work from someone else's photos.  It was fortunate, however, that the mother of this gal is an experienced photographer so I got great photos. I used my vast library of tree photos to work out the background.  In the included photos, you see my process from start to finish.  I normally work the background first, followed by the body and finally end up doing the face.  I find that in working this way,  I am subconsciously working out how I am going to tackle that face once I get to it.  I may spend two weeks working on other parts before I get to the face, but each day I am looking at that face and working out how I will do it in my mind.   This portrait is 16" x 20" and is done with Prismacolor colored pencils on Stonehenge printmaking paper.

New directions

The painting you see before you was done from a photo I took on a recent trip to Utah.  I helped my daughter move back to Park City right before Christmas and snapped this photo on a hike that we did up into the hills surrounding the city.  The title, Blue Bird Day Hike, refers to what the locals call a perfect day.  As you can see, the sky truly is the color of a blue bird. My goal in doing this painting was to capture the sunlit path through the trees.  I feel it was successful

New medium, same time committment

New medium, same time committment.

It's been awhile since I've added a new post.  Much has happened since then.  I was once a colored pencil only artist.   Recently ( in the past two years or so) ,I have been trying my hand at oil painting. At first, I experimented with water soluable oils only to find they were very difficult to get the hang of.  I read many suggestions of how to work with them and many artists who were pleased to find this medium an easy transition from regular oils.  I was able to get some fairly good studies done with them, but never really felt they were what I had imagined oil painting would feel like:  that buttery lusciousness of working the colors onto a surface and the nice feel of them sliding across the canvas.  I eventually switched to oils, but  still mix in the old water soluable ones until they are gone.  As they say,  WASTE NOT, WANT NOT!

This is a painting that I did last summer using the water soluable oils.  Not bad, but it took me ForEVER to get the paint the right consistency to cover the canvas. Since then, I have taken many classes, done lots of studies, and finally come to the conclusion that regular oils were the way to go. 

I haven't entirely let go of colored pencil though. I still love the drawing and the detail that can be achieved with this medium.  Lately I've been experimenting with other surfaces and medium combos.  Below is a painting I did recently using watercolor and colored pencil on watercolor canvas.  The beauty here is that this piece can be spayed with a UV resistant clear acrylic coating and then framed without glass, just like an oil painting.                                                                              

Beginning Strokes

I've begun the exciting process of building up the skin tones, rendering the hair and the eyes. Doing the skin tones is a painstaking process. The method I use begins with very light layers of light skin tones which must be applied evenly. Because these beginning colors are so light, it's actually difficult to sometimes see where I've been. When I take a break, I have to leave myself a little note telling me what color I left off with and where on the image I left the color.

You can see the skin tones building up if you look at the arm of the next figure to the left and compare it to what I am working on in the photo. This little guy is a real cutie and I want to capture that mischievious look.

Back to Work!!

What a long month it has been. May has always been hectic, but this time it just seemed over the top. I attended a funeral, graduation ceremonies, and a wedding, all out of town. Being away is great, but it really eats into my art time. Anyway, as you can see from this post, I am plugging away on the children's portrait and have finished the background and the children's clothing. I will soon start on the flesh tones and hair. This is the most exciting part of the portrait process for me. I absolutely love working on getting a good likeness, and when I'm successful, nothing can be more rewarding. As I said in an earlier post, I have never done three people together in one portrait. It will be quite a challenge for me, but one that I am looking forward to. My plan is to start with the figure on the right. Since I am left handed, working from right to left will help in keeping the piece clean. I will also be covering much of the already finished work with a cover sheet to keep any stray pencil dust from smearing my work. I will also review much of the technique that I use to layer on the pencil color to build up skin tones. Much of the technique that I use is from studying with Ann Kullberg, and reviewing her book on portraits. This book has become my bible when doing portraits in this technique, and actually taking one of her workshops was invaluable in giving me the confidence to try this on my own. Much of the success that I have achieved I owe to her. Thanks, Ann.

Working out the Background

In the two photos pictured above, you can see how far I have come this week on the background. This piece is rather large, 20" x 25", so it is slow going. I find that even with a good drawing, I am constantly referring to my photos for reference. I am not copying item for item and color for color what I see in the photo, but rather interpreting what I see into something that I find pleasing to the eye and , I hope, to the client. I am also trying to keep the background less detailed. In other words, I am not drawing each leaf and flower to look exactly like a photo of a leaf and flower, but a suggestion of them. My aim is to fool the eye into believing that these shapes and colors in the background are my friends flower garden. Many of the leaves of the hollyhocks are in shadow in the photo. Getting these shadows just right in the drawing would be a daunting task, involving many more shades of green. Stay tuned for the next post.