did some extra work on olivias face, just putting in the shadows and making sure everything is in the right place. did some more work on mine, too. i bought some new paints and brushes today, for the first tine in months. the smallest round brush i had wasn’t small enough so i’ve bought a 000 for the eyelashes and a small flat one, too, just for detail. also bought a tube of terre verte, as the sap green which i use in skin tones all the time is a bit yellowey, and a tube of raw umber, as burnt umber is a bit red based and looks too reddy brwon in the hair.
ooh, i nearly finished helen! i did alter the nose, it still isn’t quite right, needs to twist a bit round to the left. i always look at it in real life and it looks fine, then i take a photo and it looks all wrong…
oh yes, bit of a disaster with the background on olivia’s one, couldn’t work out what colour to do the sky, so did it one shade of blue, changed my mind, then changed it to light naples yellow, so it went green (obviously).. sort of scrubbed it out until next time1 need to make a decision soon though, because whatever colour it is it will have a lot of white in it, so will take a while to dry, so i won’t be able to do the hair until it is.. so it has a knockon effect, basically. don’t panic, don’t panic…
have just come home for lunch. painting makes me very hungry! i painted the first layer on olivia today, and am in the process of refining the first layer on me. i’ll put photos of that up later. going to attempt to finish helen, having it sitting there unfinished is annoying me a bit.
here are the ones of olivia, and of my degree show layout, and a photo of my studio space.
did lots today, very pleased with myself! photoshopped the photos that i chose, upping the contrast a bit so i get some good shadows, then printed them. i took loads of photos today, of the actual process, so you’ll be able to see it from the very beggining to the end. to transfer the image to the canvas i do a tracing using plastic and a black marker, going round the features, then pull up the sheet bit by bit, drawing in pencil the line, so then i have a rough idea of where everything is. this is a really importrant part of the process, because if i make a mistake at the stage, and don’t notice it, then, say, the eye might be a centimetre the wrong way and i might not notice until after i’ve painted it and that would be a disater! after that i paint in over the pencil with a browny green wash, adding some tones. then i put on the first layer of paint, wheich won’t be visable in the final piece but just acts as a base to put other colours on. i did that on the one of me, it looks like me which is a huge realief becuase the one of helen didn’t look like her for ages. hopefully these won’t cause me too much pain (famous last words!)
the one bad thing about today was that the canvas’s that i ordered for the skull paintings are too small, it’s my fault, for some strange reason i thought i wanted them to be six inches, when in fact they need to be ten, so i’ve placed another order.
i also did a bit more work on helen, not enough too warrant another photo, i’ll wait till its done before i put that up.
i did a mock up of the placement of the paintings in my degree show, as i mentioned before i’ve changed the order somewhat, i’ll put those photos on too…
ok, iknow which image i am using of olivia now. the one of my is giving m a bit of trouble, i think vanity may be getting in the way of choosing the photo that is going to work best as a painting, rather than which one is going to make me look good! the main property that it needs to possess is a decent graduaton from light to dark in the skintones; ie part of the face needs to be significantly lighter than the other. this is so i can avoid the difficulties that i had in helen’s portrsit, where her face was all the same tone. also, it needs to be quite close up, like the one of kate, so the brushmarks that i use correspond to the size of the face, again, a lesson i learned from helen’s portrait. the one of olivia looks better tonally at the moment because i’ve photoshopped it – it looked a bit washed out before.
