Finished Object Friday – Painting

During my lessons with Ross Meyers, I wanted to learn how to paint a portrait. He had given a good lesson on drawing faces. Now I was ready to paint one. I found this photograph on Unsplash to use as a reference. (Unsplash.com is a site where photographers give permission to download and use their images. without attribution.)

I liked that it was a very clean close-up of a young man. I saved the photo in black and white format in order to simplify the values. Then I did a contour sketch at home on water color paper and brought it to class.

The first question I had was about pigments suitable for portraiture. Ross suggested yellow ochre, burnt sienna, alizarin crimson and burnt umber. I didn’t have the umber, so I got out payne’s gray. He demonstrated the first wash – over the face and hair. While it was drying, I moved on to another painting. I never made it back to this painting until yesterday.

Starting with the same palette, I painted the neck and the lips, brows and eyes. Next I increased the shadows and added more details to the face.

I decided that the background should be a dark color. I chose violet, but mixed it with indigo so I could get some texture and granulation.

Today I added more shadow and beard stubble, painted in the eyelashes and put a pale grey wash on the T-shirt. Here is my young man now.

While my version is not an exact rendering of the original photograph, I am very happy with this finish. He looks a bit exotic – I think it’s the long Roman nose. His face is slightly tough but with softness around his eyes.

After this effort, I am feeling more optimistic about painting people’s faces. Maybe I will try painting a family member now.