I started a new painting this weekend, building on what I learned from the last one. This time, I won’t have a step-by-step guide. I had to make every choice myself and I can see what Carol Carter was talking about in terms of painting being tiring. Definitely requires mental focus. I’m trying to keep in mind Carol’s advice on not making it precious. That’s why I picked Juliana — the composition is similar enough to the old man that I could borrow some of the techniques from the tutorial but more importantly, I don’t have an emotional connection to her so I won’t feel any pressure to make it match any personal memories I have.

I’m going to post my progress in reverse chronological order here, as evidence  — for me to see all the awkward, terrible in progress phases where I want to throw it out. Regardless of how it goes, I’m committing to finishing it.

Some other things I’m exploring with this one:

• I don’t want to scrub anything
• I’m doing it like Louise de Masi does the giraffe — applying washes really far from the water’s edge. I like the smoothness I’m getting with this.
• Dedicated brushes for 1) water application, 2) pigment application, 3) edge softening
• Background color
• Using the reference photo — not to copy but as a starting off point. I’m changing her gaze and expression. I might change the eye color too.

What I’ve learned so far:

• I’m really wobbly on color
• But I’m stronger on value

Too pink wth, still seems really washed out

structure is emerging

Experimented with metallic background and fixed shoulder

I followed along with Art Painting Workshop’s YouTube tutorial.

What a learned:

• water control
• Start with a strong drawing.
• Keep my ink or pencil sketch handy as a reference if I get wobbly about the guide lines in the painting.
• Keep track of my color mixes, label them on the palette.
• Don’t try to “fix” too much. Just let it be and if I really hate it, adjust in the next painting otherwise it will look really overworked and scrubby.
• Wet the areas I want to paint but don’t let the pigment get anywhere close to the waterline to avoid the hard edges completely.
• Don’t apply a bunch of dark paint at once, layer it up to the final value.
• Use the soft blending technique to control the spread of pigment within the wet areas.
• Don’t use a hair dryer, just wait.
• It takes the pressure off to think of every one as a study or a practice piece.
• Don’t use the cello tape and be super careful with the masking tape at the end! This guy has some tips on how to prevent tearing.

What I liked:

• intensity of color
• range of values
• modeling/dimensionality
• structure held up during the process
• the nose!

What I want to change:

• mottling
• overworked look that came from rewetting super pigmented areas and scrubbing out hard lines
• I liked the plain white background better than the metallic and yellow ochre

Day 5: finished!

Day 4

Day 3

What’ I’ve learned so far:

• Glazing is everything! In the video, they work over the same area 10x. It really adds depth. Without the step-by-step demo, I wouldn’t have know how many layers there are in this. As it is, I probably went too dark too fast.
• Lighting in portraiture is everything!
• How the heck do you get the paper from drying immediately?!?!
• It seems weird not to work up all the aspects of the composition concurrently. I’m not sure I would choose to do it that way on my own.

Day 2: Really bummed I forgot to take a picture of the first wash

Carol Carter’s thoughts on watercolor

Lots of great reflections in this interview with Carol Carter:

• She does several paintings of the same subject before she gets one that is good enough to show.
• Don’t do exercises. Always do finished paintings. Don’t go back and “fix” awkward parts. Do the painting again, from beginning to end. Learn from your mistakes. Do a progressive painting based on the former one. It’s not about making one painting perfect but a sequence of paintings. It’s not really about the product as much as the process.
• You’ll develop your visual language over time, like 12 years! 🙂 It’s not magic. It’s just painting.

Seven

Inked!

Art Prof

Serendipity! I stumbled on artprof.org and this lesson on portraiture just as I’m starting this series. Some reflections as I inked… I approached this drawing very much as a relationship between two figures. I did NOT start with the eyes, nose, and mouth (I had to think about that when Prof. Lieu asked in the video). I did it just like I did the succulent or the cow (posts to come). I go from big forms to small. So maybe I did learn something in Drawing 101.

Also, I’m excited to translate from picture to sketch to ink to watercolor. It’s like Sr. Sheila teaching us how to write a term paper — making notes, making notecards, and writing from there. I like the distance from the original, the opportunities to inject some sort of unconscious translation or stylization. It reminds me of how I had to plan out my printmaking projects.

Some portrait artists to note:

Jordan Casteel. Great interview with the artist where she talks about her twin brother and representing Black men. Really big paintings. Yale and Harlem School

Faith Ringgold. She fights for women artists in the art world — we want 50% at the Whitney Biennial. Art is a visual image of who you are. That’s the power of being an artist.

Alice Neel. Love her quirky portraits — the proportions are all wrong, the perspective, the expressions!

Mark Tansey. A Gagosian artist. Monochromatic — like ONE c0lor! Huge paintings. Example: The Key — a retelling of the story of Adam and Eve getting kicked out of Eden.

Top 5 Portraiture Mistakes

1. Stressing about likeness and accuracy. There’s emotional baggage associated with portraits (versus still lifes). It affects you emotionally.
2. Starting with the eyes, nose, mouth. Building the hair, neck, shoulders around the facial features. Those are details and take up very little of the portrait. You should start with the things that take up the most mass. Think about it like a sculptor. You would not start with the eyeball! Start with the structural stuff. The three most important structural elements of a face: the zygomatic arches, the mandible, and the ear — they all connect. It’s like a little intersection. Anatomy is connect the dots. Once you know the basic structure. Even at sketching stage, look at the big things — the slouch, the shoulders, etc. Don’t add those later.
3. Drawing the details too soon. Simplify the form and establishing the structure. Details are like sprinkles on a cupcake. Bake the cupcake first otherwise you don’t have anything. Details without structure will fall apart. They should be the last 5%. 95% should be building up form, thinking about shadow, lighting, anatomy, structure. Drawings don’t even have to have detail to be successful. Not the pupils, the eye socket!
4. Drawing exclusively from photos. Train yourself to draw from life and that makes it easier when you draw from photos. Build a foundation of drawing from life. Do quick casual sketches (like of your family). 5 minute sketches. Keep it fresh. Make it surprising to yourself — not what you expect.
5. Drawing the hair last. You lose the mass of the hair. It’s part of the structure. It’s part of someone’s personality. If you work with it without that mass for so many hours and hope that the personality is going to come across. You end up like they have wigs on. Artificial, like you can just peel the hair off the head. Get the hair in there early on. A portrait isn’t eyes, nose and mouth. You have to work on all of it as a cohesive thing. The chin matters just as much. The way the person holds their shoulders or neck.

Seven: initial sketch and reference photo

No shortcuts! I’m becoming aware of my tendency to punt something down the field…
I’ll deal with that later. I’m going to stop doing that because it just aggravates the problem later. I’m going to deal with it now, assessing whether I am happy with the execution of this piece right here in the sketching stage before I move on — are the expressions the way I want them? The hands? Etc. I will not assume I can fix it in the painting stage.

This is where the translation from a photograph to artwork happens so am I happy with it? I’m not projecting and tracing. I’m actually drawing — intentionally. I don’t want it to look like I traced it. I want something to happen in between those two states. Do I like the translation?

Also at this point, do I have enough data so that I can paint it well? Do I need to add more cues that will help me later?

Initial sketch

There’s something wacky going on with the right hand. Re-drawing that before I ink.

Reference photo