Portraits

More Portrait Practice: Grayscale

| cathmary1030

This portrait is from a black and white reference photo that, unfortunately, I cannot remember where I downloaded it from — possibly from the curated Unsplash photos here. In any case, I actually drew this one out entirely by hand (in willow charcoal). Not sure why I chose a yellow ochre-clear gesso background, but I did. 

I’m reasonably satisfied with this one — at least she looks fairly human. I can list at least half a dozen things I would want to do differently next time, but calling this done for now.

 

Let’s Face It 2024 — Week 4

| cathmary1030

I did this charcoal work as a part of the 4th weekly exercise of Let’s Face It 2024. It was taught by Jim Bentley. (He does a demo of this face on his Instagram account.) For the class he used Bristol paper — which I believe is fairly smooth — and also carbon powder applied with brushes, none of which I had. I did my charcoal piece with some willow charcoal, compressed charcoal sticks, and blending stumps. And on Strathmore Charcoal paper, tinted green.

Sketch from “Bringing the Portrait to Life”

| cathmary1030

One of the many (!) online art classes I’m taking is called “Bringing the Portrait to Life” by Lauren Rudolph via KaraBullockArt.com. This sketch was done on smooth Bristol paper, based on the reference photo provided in the class. Next steps will be to trace the sketch, and then transfer it to a 9×12 canvas, do an underpainting, and then paint the portrait. I won’t be using oil paint, but acrylics — when I get to it, with all my other projects.

Let’s Face It 2018 — Week 43

| cathmary1030

The portrait comes from the week 43 exercise of Kara Bullock Art‘s Let’s Face It 2018 portrait art experience/class. While I am participating in the 2024 version, and (sort of) participated in the 2023 version, I bought the 2018 set of classes (52 weeks in all) last year. This was one that interested me.

I drew out most of the face last June with pencil, finished it earlier this week with willow charcoal and decided just to get it painted for the practice. (Even though I’m not crazy about parts of my drawing.)

Here’s the completed version, and below I have a set of photos of the in-between phases. (Too often we only see the final work people do, not the messy/ugly intermediate stages. 🙂 )

Here’s the in-progress stages. She looks more than a little sickly, and then I revised all the colors, not following the instructor at all.

3 Faces Ready to Paint

| cathmary1030

I have finished up 3 faces and am ready to paint them. The first one is on an 11×14 canvas, which I toned with burnt sienna, and then drew in part in pencil last June. Finally finished off the drawing part using willow charcoal. The image is from a Let’s Face It 2018 portrait art “class” (more like an online art experience) from KaraBullockArt.

The second one is on a 9×12 canvas, toned with yellow ochre and clear gesso. I drew this on by hand also earlier this month, using willow charcoal. I’m not sure now where the reference image came from.

Lastly, the third face is based on a photograph I took, and traced on to 300-lb. cold-pressed watercolor, and given a wash of acrylic glazing medium, pyrrole red, and cad-free yellow medium.

Sktchy – Painting Portraits Class #2 – DONE!

| cathmary1030

The portrait lesson from my “Painting Portraits with Karl Staub” class on Sktchy is now complete. If I had it to do again, I wouldn’t use the Opera Rose/Raw Sienna mixture. I’d go with a pale umber or a light yellow ochre. Or even just a plain white canvas! Anyway, I am mostly satisfied with it — the eyes are better than I’ve done before!

I skipped a lot of the blue and the white highlights the teacher used in the online class; the red background of my canvas made it look like she had red highlights in her hair (as opposed to the black tresses the actual model has in the photo reference used.)

#Sktchy #PortraitswithKarl

Sktchy – Painting Portraits Class #2 (WIP)

| cathmary1030

This work-in-progress is again from my “Painting Portraits with Karl Staub” class on Sktchy. I am doing this one in acrylic on a 8×10 canvas. The background is a mix of Opera Rose (Winsor & Newton Galeria) which is a garish bubble gum pink and Raw Sienna. The face was drawn on to the painted canvas, and I’ve done the first layer in Burnt Umber (following along).

#Sktchy #PortraitswithKarl