I’ve been working in the studio a lot lately but haven’t been good about posting progress updates. I’ve been focusing exclusively on these three portraits and have two to three more sessions in on each of them now since I last posted.
First up is the portrait of Dr. Hinkie.
I have most of the painting blocked in at this point. Still a lot of things to resolve in all areas but making consistent progress. There’s a second pass in on most of the face which is helping to get those features looking for solid and lifelike. Pretty happy with the progress there. I blocked in the top of the head and I feel a little bad posting this in-progress photo as I’ve decided to ensure that the top of the cranium looked solid and volumetric before putting in the hair on the top of the head, but I think that’s going to lead to a better overall portrait in the end. Should be able to add in that missing element in the next pass.
The background still needs work. I initially painted in the horizontal lines in the background to the left of the form and though they had a hint of blue in them, they were much too grey overall to stand up against the deep, rich emerald green background color.
So I grabbed the same Prussian Blue that I used to mix the green and used that to start in. I think that’s working better but needs to be reworked to make a smoother gradient… right now it’s just bands of hue and value. I think the edges need a lot of refinement there as well but the downside to working with Prussian Blue is that it is an extremely sticky pigment with a very high tinting strength. Since it’s in the green I mixed as well hopefully this will be okay for the next pass to refine those edges.
The yellow block in the upper right corner needs more work though. It still feels like just leaving that area solid green would be wrong, there needs to be something in that portion of the surface to feel activated. I thought I learned from painting the horizontal slats too grey I needed to put this in more chromatic so I used the Chrome Yellow that was mixed into create the green but that was way, way to bright. I knocked it back down with some Naples Yellow but it still feels to chromatic for the composition. More work needed there.
Next up is the portrait of Theo. This one is getting very close.
I’ve got everything block in with at least one good pass at this point. There’s a few passes in to build up the color and lock in the structure of the face. I still have a couple of sharp corners that need to smoothed over like the brow ridge moving into the side of the nose in the shadow side, but over it’s getting close.
Pretty happy with how solid and structural the violin is feeling at this point. I want to do another pass on the hands as well as the hair and maybe one more pass to fix some of the wonkiness in the background circles.
Excited to finish this one off, it’s been a while since I’ve completed a real portrait so it will be nice to have a new one completed. Painting people is really the reason that I wanted to go to the New York Academy of Art and it’s nice to get back to what is my original love of painting.
Finally we have the portrait of Julie that I have started as well.
Obviously I’ve been spending all of my effort on the face and head. I’m pretty happy with the forms of the face at this point. Julie says – in not so many words – that I’ve focused too much on the structure of the forms and need to focus more on smoothing out the transitions between the forms. I think this is one of the reasons why I have an easier time painting and drawing men than I do with women. So many hours learning about the underlying structure and rendering things so that they feel convincingly volumetric lends itself more to traditionally male forms than to traditionally female ones.
Clearly I need to get into the background at some point, but honestly I’m really enjoying the sketchy nature of the surface around the portrait… I’ll have to consider carefully but I’m half tempted to paint the clothing and background more alla prima and leave it a bit unresolved. Especially if I can fully resolve the portrait to the level of finish I hope to do.
Anyhow lots still to do on all three paintings but making progress on all of them. Stay tuned.
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