"Waiting", new watercolor portrait

Mike was the model at the last Portrait Society conference. I think his "ordinariness" is what made him so interesting to me. That, and his fiery, red hair.

I started out with several, small sketches.

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Usually I do a full-sized value sketch on drawing paper, then transfer it onto the paper. This time I decided to draw right onto the w/c paper using an HB pencil. I found the 300# paper can takes a good bit of erasing, as long as you use a kneaded.

This is the final portrait, called "Waiting", 21" x 13" unframed.

When Good Paintings Go Bad

It started out like any other painting, work out the drawing and composition. Transfer the drawing to the w/c paper. I laid down a wash of cerulean blue over everything but the face. The idea being I wanted the face to have the whitest whites and most contrast.




Started with viridian green and burnt sienna for the skin tones and added some cobalt blue and quin red while still wet. Looking good so far.








Face is coming along. Developing warm and cool areas and starting in on the beard.







Finished up the figure and started in on the background. This is where things start to go wrong. The background looks busy, particularly the right side where the edges are too hard and the color is too bright. Hmmm... no problem. I'll just tone it down.


Added a darker wash and made the background a nice, muddy blob. I liked it better before, but too late. The next two days (seriously!) were spent going over and over the background. Eventually I ended up cutting out the figure and painted a series of new backgrounds, laying the figure on top to see how it would look. Finally settled on a new direction for the painting and started all over again.


This time I changed the angle of the figure and decided to crop him differently.





Once I had the figure painted I worked on a loose background that worked with the direction of his gaze. Done! All that's left is to go have a nice glass of wine!

Oil Study, Luke at 15

This is a painting I did of my oldest son Luke over the Christmas break, using a limited palette of Gamblin oil paint and a smooth canvas. I started out with a reference photo I took and then worked from life to make adjustments to color and detail.

Luke is at a very (ahem) interesting age. "Not a child" as he keeps reminding me, but certainly not grown up yet. He is quite a lovable guy, always willing to give a hug or a "luv ya", but also feeling the stress of being at a difficult age of discovery, independence and growth. I wanted to capture that diametric combination of confidence and uncertainty.