Portraits

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

Sktchy – Painting Portraits Class

| cathmary1030

This work is from my “Painting Portraits with Karl Staub” class on Sktchy. I’ve finally gotten around to beginning that on-demand class. The idea was to use gouache — which I don’t have — so I used watercolor. I used the 140 lb. cold-pressed paper in my “Visual Journal” (bought months ago and never used until now.) The paper buckled — ugh. Oh well, it was all in fun anyway.

Watercolor and ink. 9×12.  #Sktchy #PortraitswithKarl

Happy New Year! And 2024 Plans for my Art

| cathmary1030

I’ve got a lot on my plate for January and beyond.. I hope I’m not biting off more than I can chew!

Acrylic University – Clouds Challenge (8 weeks)

Acrylic University — Jed Dorsey’s mini painting challenge (52 weeks)

Sketch Awesome (52 weeks)

Let’s Face It 2024 (52 weeks) – a weekly series of portraits drawn or painted or created in multi-media

Sktchy – 30 Faces/30 Days Pen & Pencil (January 2024)

I’m also working through the members-only classes Acrylic 101 and Color 101 in Acrylic University, and a few other classes on Sktchy: cross-hatching, quick-sketch portraits, and painting portraits.

Photo by Jennie Razumnaya on Unsplash

Portrait Drawing Practice: Day 1

| cathmary1030

I’m putting aside the paints for the moment to focus on drawing faces (before I try painting them again!). I’ve just signed up for Sktchy’s 30 Faces in 30 Days (which starts in January 2024). I’m also going through the Portrait module of Draw Awesome again for additional practice. Phil Davies of Draw Awesome has some free resources, including “Faces for Artists” which is a curated collection of Unsplash images. One of those Unsplash images is below.

To draw this portrait in graphite, I used a method which Davies calls “modified tracing” where you make small marks to denote the width of the eyes (but not the height), the width of the nose, the width of the mouth, and the width & height of the face. The rest is freehand. I am using 9×12 Kraft paper by Stonehenge.

I have done initial shading, and will need to circle back to shade the hair darker, as well as adding white highlights where appropriate.

Photo by Jassir Jonis on Unsplash