Posts Tagged: portrait
Sly III
Sly - final
I finished my final version of Sly. See the graphite drawing of her and the monochromatic version in the previous posts. This one was done using a limited palette of 4 colors – cadmium red, cadmium yellow, ultramarine blue and sepia. My teacher thinks I have a natural aptitude for glazing technique and had me do this portrait by painting about 50 thousand glazes of mostly water.
6″ x 6″ (15 x 15 cm) watercolor on paper
Geb
Geb
Geb was the Egyptian god of the Earth and a member of the Ennead of Heliopolis. The name was pronounced as Geb from the Greek period onward or as Keb. He was the husband of Nut – the Sky, and fathered 4 children with her – Osiris, Set, Isis and Nephthys. As deity, he became associated with the habitable land of Egypt, it’s cultivation and harvest. (More on Geb in Wikipedia).
I imagine if Geb had ever taken a form of a man, he might have looked like this. Isn’t mythology great?!
In reality the story is much more prosaic. As told by a fellow artist from WetCanvas, the man worked as a guard at the temple complex of Karnak, Egypt. He was one of those guards who, when no one is looking, would show you all the places no one else will show you (of course!) and then ask for money, and that’s when you realize you’ve been had. This man was better than others though, he did not blatantly ask for money and agreed to pose for photos. He is now known around the world as many have drawn and painted him for the wonderful worn face full of character.
I’ve been working on this portrait since November 2009. Had to pause for a time to teach myself negative drawing – I couldn’t get the white beard/stubble right by any other method. Then I waited for Hi-Polymer 0.3mm graphite leads to arrive, because my regular 2mm lead pencils were too fat and too shiny for the task. This is the third version of the beard, not counting numerous trials in my sketchbook. As it sometimes happens to me, I was afraid this drawing would go unfinished because my skills were not up to this challenge. It looks like I was wrong.
7.5” x 9” (19 x 23 cm) Graphite on Bristol Smooth 300 Series.
Sly – monochromatic
Sly - monochromatic study
The same face I worked in graphite a few days ago – Sly – now in watercolor, a monochromatic study in preparation for painting a full color portrait. I find her face and expression rather out of the ordinary and complex. Interestingly I have heard quite diverse takes on her expression – sly, crafty, furtive, beautiful, b!tch, bored, boring, playful, coy, cunning, just to name a few. It is very rewarding to me to take in all these different reactions, perhaps it means that I produced a portrait complex and unorthodox enough to cause them.
6″ x 6″ (15 x 15 cm), Burnt Umber on Fabriano Soft Press.
She wears a red bandana
She wears a red bandana
Second quick watercolor sketch from Charles Reid book. This one was harder because first I got in trouble with my drawing and had to start over. Then my pigments wouldn’t give me as dark of a mark as I wanted. So I went over some areas again to build value and it shows.
Another new happening for me – for this sketch I dispensed with my porcelain palette and its individual wells and used a white dinner plate instead. I made dabs of strong pigment and let them mix mud-pie style on my plate. It was great! When I needed sienna-umber 50-50 mix I would pick it up from the middle between the dabs. When I wanted my mix to be more red I moved closer to the center of burnt sienna dab. When I wanted my color tinted I would pull some ultramarine in the center. Very convenient – all color and value gradations where right there on my dinner plate. It took 2 hours to paint her, but it would probably take much longer if I would mixed my colors in the wells each one separate from the other.
5” x 4” (13 x 10 cm) on Arches Cold Press, Cotman pan paints
Saint Nick?
St. Nick
Well, no. I am sure he is not, because he is an exercise from Charles Reid’s book Watercolor Solutions. But he definitely makes me think of St. Nicolas. Must be the beard. I am obsessed with white beards these days because a salt-and-pepper beard from a graphite portrait I am working on is eluding me.
What is astonishing about this sketch is the fact that I painted him in one hour. Including the drawing. Perhaps I do have a little predisposition for portrait after all – an amazing thought! Which is not a thing to say about my painting of water (not shown here because it turned out a disaster.) Or perhaps it is Charles Reid’s technique – 3 super-saturated colors, wet-on-dry, almost dry brush but not quite, no waiting and no smoothing of edges, stop before you think you are finished.
I used my new Escoda 1212 Tajmir Kolinsky brushes, a Hanukkah gift from my parents. Even though I am an adult of respectable age, my dear parents still give me Hanukkah gifts – how wonderful! Well, I painted with them for the first time, and I am here to say: Escoda Kolinsky are a pure bliss!
5” x 6” (13 x 16 cm) on Cotman Watercolor pad, Cotman pan colors.
Sly
Sly
sly (sl
)
Too bad about my paper. I chose to draw on Stonehenge with the thought that this would be only a study. This paper is a bit too rough for a young skin like that and shows too much tooth. Bristol Smooth paper would’ve been much better.
6″ x 6″ (15 x 15 cm), graphite on Stonehenge.
Never fear!
Never fear!
It is finished. It took a month, dozens of glazes, and I have given up (and resumed) twice in the process.
I’ve been using a traditional glazing technique under instruction of my teacher. There were three hues used – Cobalt Blue, Alizarin Crimson and Cadmium Yellow – single color glazes. I am not sure anymore how many glazes it took, I’ve lost count after 15, the total is probably as many as 25 in some places and as little as 2 in others.
The painting looked amazingly ugly until the very end. And this is why I have given up on it two times. I just didn’t have the heart to continue and be faced with my inadequacy. Interestingly I have been reading Art & Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking by David Bayles and Ted Orland while I was struggling with the glazes. I think this book is a must-read for every artist, it gives an insight what the fears are about. And while it doesn’t give a cure from the fear, it leaves you with a conscious choice of how to face it.
In the end I chose to persevere. I really wanted to know if I have what it takes. The other thing that kept me going was that I soft of knew that the ugly color splotches must gel into something coherent at some point (and everybody was saying so as well). I wanted to reach that point and see for myself. It happened in the evening of Dec. 9th. I painted the pupils and while they were drying was working on the background. And then I saw it – something happened to the painting, some threshold got reached after all this time, – there was skin where moments before I could only see color splotches. It was an amazing thing to experience. In honor of that moment and the book that helped me along I call this painting “Never fear!”
On a technical note, my teacher had me do several studies for this painting. I am posting them as well, my daughter aptly called them my “little monsters”: a graphite study, a brush drawing and 2 monochromatic value studies.
Quite a ride this was. While this work is rather wobbly and unsure, there are a couple things I am pleased with – I managed the likeness, expression and correct age.
5.5″ x 5.5″ (13 x 13 cm) on Arches CP, Cotman pans colors (these are my dad’s watercolors. It pleases me to no end that I am painting with my dad’s pigments!)
Red Hat
Red Hat
According to my theory of predictable beginner subjects my next painting was supposed to be a building of some kind. No rule exists without exceptions, and so I created an exception. It is a human subject, and wearing a red hat at that.
The idea was to have color study exercise, a fast and sloppy wet-in-wet. It was really dripping. All reds in my box are here, mixed into cools and warms. The sketch and preparing washes took about an hour. The painting – 20 minutes.
“Like a rolling stone”
Like a rolling stone
New portrait is complete. I probably spent 30 or 40 hours on it, but that’s over the course of 4 weeks. I don’t know who the guy is, the original photo is by amazingly talented Christine Lebrasseur. I had Bob Dylan continuously sounding in my head while I was drawing, and therefor the title is “Like a rolling stone.” My fellow graphite artists from WetCanvas! Drawing & Sketching forum have helped me tremendously by giving constructive critique in the most gentle and useful way.
3H-6B pencils on Stonehenge paper, size 6.25″ square.
“Now what?!”
Happy apples and honey to everyone who celebrates New Year today! Interestingly enough this year Jewish New Year coincides with the “Talk like a pirate” day. So if you are a pirate of Jewish persuasion or a Jew aspiring to be a pirate here are some pointers: Shana Tova, matey!
I finished another study portrait. At least I think it is finished because at my current level of skills I am not sure what else I can do. A little over 6×6 inches in size, graphite on Bristol Smooth, it took about 25 hours. The original photo is by a French photographer Christine Lebrasseur.
Now what?!