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Portrait beginning
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Message
Posted
I'm very much a beginner, started during first lockdown. This painting is acrylic on paper, A3 size. I had a lot of trouble getting the correct tone for the skin and it's better but had to finally accept that's the best I was going to get. It's based on a photograph by Steve McCurry. I would welcome any suggestions on how to improve.
Edited
by Anna Hearn
There we go ! Best regards... Bryan
Posted
Welcome to the forum Anna. You will find lots of useful tips here. Also if you ask a question you will usually get a sensible answer.
Flesh tones are always difficult to get right, but I think you have done a good job here for this Mongolian? lady. It might help if you look up “Zorn palette”, a system that recommends yellow ochre, burnt sienna and white, adding blues for shadows. It seems to work for most skin tones.
If you get a chance try drawing/ painting from life. Everyone has a mirror if you can’t get anyone to sit for you.
Posted
You may try my palette,
White, yellow ochre, raw umber, lemon yellow, cadmium red, red ochre/terra Rosa, magenta, ivory black/ultramarine blue, cobalt blue, cobalt green
You don’t need magenta at early stage but it is a magic colour for flesh.
I paint in oil. The behaviour is a little bit different from acrylic when you mix the colour. But I believe this palette can help you.
I agree with Linda, you should also try life painting. Because the colour from the light is totally different from a pic.
It is because all camera filtered a lot of information and may even alter the colour. Therefore, if you want to start from a picture and want to draw realistically, you need to add extra information(colour) onto your painting and you can learn this from life painting.
Posted
Another useful post from Kenneth Leung - the only colour that doesn't appear on my palette which he mentions is Cobalt Green - not least because it's very expensive. I remember though a painter - well known, published in The Artist, and of course his name has escaped me entirely! - who recommended Cobalt Green as the only natural green available in one tube, and a good mixer with others.
I am sorely tempted.
The commonly given advice - not least by me - is to have a limited palette of colours from which others can be mixed: but there are some which are particularly hard to mix without veering into an unnatural clash or muddied colour. I know that we don't all yearn for "natural" - Alan Bickley doesn't, for starters; but if you're going to exaggerate, to adapt, to experiment and play with colour, it does seem somewhat counter-intuitive, once the basics of colour mixing have been learned, to shun colours which might help enliven a painting, just to serve the principle of the limited palette.
But other opinions are available!
Posted
I don't attempt to copy nature exactly as I perceive it, but I will do on occasions when I consider it relevant to do so.
I'm more of a colourist and much prefer to explore and even exaggerate colours generally, it's how I've always worked.
Green is useful for portrait painting, although it doesn't necessarily have to be cobalt green, but is the most desirable. Kenneth's palette differs from my own choice, but he's laid out an acceptable range of colours.
When it comes to the style of portrait painting, I much prefer and admire the direct approach of artists such as Tim Benson PROI NEAC, stunningly bold and exciting colours and mark making at its best!
Edited
by Alan Bickley
Posted
It was once a fairly common practice to pick out the features with Terre Verte and lead white, and then glaze over them in layers of flesh tones: I did that once as an exercise - while my portrait was really no more than a sketch, if a slightly complicated one, the technique worked. Brief explanation - get the basic drawing done; paint over that with Terre Verte; pick out the details with preferably lead white (it dries faster, is more transparent, much less likely to cause problems with the over-painting than Titanium [and I know - first find your lead white....] ) then paint your flesh colours, perhaps Burnt and Raw Sienna, many variations available, over that, adjusting as you go, thinning the colour out here, thickening and emphasizing it there. Works in acrylic, too.
Now I'm off to check on the work of Tim Benson.
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