A Little Body Language

Sometime I come across a picture that just makes me want to paint.  This was one of those - the body language here makes me laugh and I asked the mom of Reese (the little girl in the picture) if I could paint this.  I love painting children but I find that I have to remind myself that when painting portraits the goal is to produce a "likeness" not a photograph.  Rosalind Cuthbert states that the question of what makes a good likeness is impossible to answer.  " If ten painters gathered around a single sitter their differing styles might produce radically different images, each of which might also be a good likeness. " I also like what Chris Saper says in the book, Painting Beautiful Skin Tones with Color and Light.  She says "Think of a portrait as a painting that just happens to star a particular person.  Without the interpretation of the artist to simplify information and decide what is important for the viewer, there's no need for a painting at all.  It would be faster and easier just to take a nice photograph and be done with it."   So if any of you are struggling with portrait painting....remember these words and be kind to yourself. 

Marquise

I attended the Sarah Towery Carlisle Art Colony this past week as I have for the last eight years.  This year my instructor was Nancy Chaboun.   Nancy teaches at the Scottsdale Artists' School and is an accomplished painter.  I found her to be very informative and  very accessible to each artist, giving personal one on one instruction and assistance.  She possesses great skill in both still life painting and portrait painting and she combines her teaching with humor.  Some of the main "take aways" I received regarding portraits are:

1. The less values you have in a painting, the stronger the painting - this is the #1 problem in painting and the #1 asset.
2. We recognize people from a distance by the shape of their heads so insure that this is correct 
3. The eyes are balls so create the "roundness" when drawing the eyes
4.  Do not make the whites of the eyes "white" but a more muted color
5.  Ears are slightly redder because of the closeness of vessels to the surface
6.  The top of the ear catches light
7.  When painting hands you can follow the line of the arm to the first finger and the third finger to position the fingers on the hand.  She created the shape of the hand not each individual finger
8.  More comes forward and less moves back - therefore, if you want something to "come forward" in the painting then add more detail 
9.   White always cools
10.  Simplify! 

And......Make your darks darker ----she said this quite often to our class.  

You can find her lovely work at       http://nancychabounfineart.com

 

Blue Eyes

After taking the challenge on DPW I decided to experiment with portraits with more colors. This is no one in particular (I don't think :)  I just made her portrait up as I went to practice eyes, color mixing and lips.  After I finished the painting I did find her eyes speaking to me so maybe she just wanted to be painted. If you click on the picture you actually can see a larger version that I think is better to view.