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Grisaille method
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Message
Posted
More progress. The drying process let the underlying grey come through too much, so I have had to go over most of the skin tones! I’m using 2 main b&w reference photos with different lighting and attire. Then there is the hair. I don’t have much experience with painting hair. My weekly portrait class is only 2 hours long, so not much time to concentrate on hair and this is my first portrait in oils. Definitely time to stand back again.
Posted
Take your time - the one thing I've learned when painting portraits, of which I've done very few, is that it's all too easy to get ahead of yourself, and discover you have a thick build-up of paint all of basically the same tone and hue. I think you've done a smashing job on the hair, the features are working much more realistically (this isn't surprising ... they take a time to build) and the one thing I remain a bit concerned about here is the hand - the back of it isn't quite there yet, but you're probably still working on that. (I'm working on a portrait too - dare I show the WIP..... )
Posted
Thank you for your comments Robert. You are right portraits take time. What is surprising is that even at this large scale a tweak of a millimetre makes a big difference at times as for the smaller details it is still quite fiddly. I still need to tweak her chin by a smidgen.
The hand is still causing me concern. The reference photo only shows the side of the hand; the rest is in dark shadow. I’ve painted in the back of the hand and painted it out again. I can’t use my aged wrinkled digits as a reference, so I think I will have to go on an internet hunt.
I would love to see your “Oh no! Jeremy Corbyn” portrait in progress. The facial hair, I think would be quite challenging.
Posted
I'm sure your digits aren't so wrinkled that you can't see the bone structure - I did think when I saw the original photo that you'd have trouble with that hand, because the detail is so lost in shadow. In your place, I'd ------- panic! No no. Well, yes yes, probably, but having done that, I'd make a lot of pencil studies of hands in just this position - using my own for reference in the first place, and then scouring books and the internet for others. I would only say as an observation that the back of the hand in this is too straight and severe, as if the fingers start at the wrist; an indication of the knuckles should help, breaking up that firm line. You might also want to darken the shadow but not to hide structural weakness: a) you'd always know you'd done that - could you live with the guilt? - and b) it probably wouldn't work anyway as a method of concealment.
Incidentally, what is that object holding up the picture - a mediaeval torture device? Of course you see the issue here - the fact that you needed to look at the picture from an upright point of view (which I'm sure you're right about, it will help); painting from a photo, most especially from just one photo, means not that the work has all been done for you - as you're discovering, it certainly hasn't - but that it has been posed, composed, adjusted, by the photographer - who might for all we know have been lying on his back with one leg in the air in order to gain the perspective and attitude he was after. But you're doing a great job with the raw material available to you; and I have posted my Jezzer Stage I on the WIP tab, so you can see you're not alone in your suffering.
Oh, and until you get paint all over yourself and any partner foolish enough to stand anywhere near you, you're not a proper painter: observe many pictures of Francis Bacon or Lucian Freud in their studios - more paint than painter.
Posted
Further thought - I've just had a look in the mirror at my own hand cupping/supporting the face like this, but that hand doesn't look as if it's actually doing anything - it's almost as if it's another hand, ie someone else's, because it isn't supporting the head, it stands, as it were, away from it. Really, I'd get the sketch-book out and really explore the contours between hand, arm and face before committing yourself to more paint.
Where's that David Stead when you need him? He's much more used to portraiture than I am.
Posted
You are right about the hand, Robert as usual. But I have been fixing worse problems in my eyes. I just wish I had drawn it properly in the first place and carbon copied it onto the canvas. I found that the lips were way too short. The nose was wrong. The eye on the right is still wrong. Using 2 photos, means that I often don’t know what I am doing or which photo I am emulating. Yes I do sympathise with you Robert. With the wisdom of hindsight, I think it is a good idea too draw a detailed graphite rendition, so that you know the face in detail. But here is my latest edition, with the 2 photos.
Edited
by Linda Wilson
Posted
Linda, look carefully at her left side of the face. The cheek is too wide. Cut in a bit with the background. I think this will make a difference. Also, the bend in the wrist is slightly lower and is more curved. It's easier to see these things when it's not your own work. I can be more objective.
Edited
by Marjorie Firth
Posted
Thank you Marjorie. I agree about the cheek. I’ve taken a slither off it already, but it needs to loose another. The wrist/ arm is difficult, because in the upper photo her body is in one direction, but In the lower one her body is twisted in the opposite direction. In my version, I have the body in the first direction, so her arm could not be at the same angle as the second.