I enjoyed playing with a new tool to get her hair just right: I had ordered some plastic scrapers meant to be used with Gelli plates that one of my Let's Face It teachers had recommended for making stripes or patterns in oil paint, and I used one of them to "scumble" the colors together and put some texture into her soft cloud of hair.
11 March 2024
More in the theme
I enjoyed playing with a new tool to get her hair just right: I had ordered some plastic scrapers meant to be used with Gelli plates that one of my Let's Face It teachers had recommended for making stripes or patterns in oil paint, and I used one of them to "scumble" the colors together and put some texture into her soft cloud of hair.
03 March 2024
Sort of a theme?
I continued this week with using the same color palette and with exploring mythological themes for a new painting. I had a vague recollection of reading one worldview in which the Moon is a Triple Goddess, with the waxing (growing) moon being the maiden, the full moon as the mother, and the waning moon representing the crone. Although I wasn't entirely comfortable with the symbology—are middle-aged women only worthwhile if they are mothers? and are crones really "waning" or diminished in some way? I think not. Nevertheless, the idea, preoccupied as I was last week by the maiden portrait of Proserpine, stuck in my head, and then I came across a reference photo that seemed like a cross between a goddess and a saint, subject of the portrait I painted before that one (Saint Side-Eye), so I decided I could take this vague legend and make something fun from it, even if I disagreed with its characterizations.
The result is this woman in the full flush of the middle of her life, cheerfully giving a blessing. I dressed her in the red oxide color I've been using, thinking of a Blood Moon, and gave her a necklace that harks back to an early witchy symbol for the three-part goddess. And then, just for fun, I also gave her a halo of sorts. (I thought about hanging a blood moon in the upper left corner, but finally decided it was too literal, and maybe also overkill. But...?)
The painting went smoothly until I got to the decorative bits. I did an undercoat of the red oxide on the necklace before putting on the gold metallic acrylic medium, because in the painting of Saint Side-Eye I liked the effect of the red peering through the gold, and I thought it would go nicely with her dress; but for some reason it was harder to get the gold to cover the red here. It also looked flat, which was perfect for the saint's halo but not for a necklace, so I ended up giving it some highlights and dark edges with regular paint.
I didn't want to undercoat the halo red first, because it would be too stark against the light ultramarine background, so I went in directly with the gold paint over the blue, but it didn't work at all. Then I decided to put a film of white paint over it, but that just killed the glow. So I coated it again with the gold over the white, but that was splotchy and looked like she had made herself a homemade halo out of a paper plate or something. So I went back in with the blue background color and, instead of an unbroken perfect halo, I did a sort of "rays" effect with alternating blue and gold, so that it became an extension of her blond hair. I'm not completely happy with it, but I think it works okay.
The only other element with which I had a problem was her gaze. In the reference photo it is a direct look at the viewer, but no matter how conscientiously I tried to duplicate it, I couldn't get her to look at me! I have noted this problem before, and still haven't figured it out. I would have liked the portrait much better if I could have achieved it here, though, as she had such a friendly, cheerful, intimate glance.
This is "Selene"—acrylics and gold medium on thin birch board, 12x16 inches.
13 February 2024
Old medium, new technique
Lat week's LFI2024 lesson was with watercolorist Unyime Edet, and it was an adventure in using a familiar medium in an unfamiliar manner. First and foremost, he paints with a flat brush, which I have never done in watercolor—the general approved method for watercolor is round, with a point. Second, he paints the darks first, layering up to the light instead of starting light and adding in the darks in layers. It's challenging to save the whites when you work like this, but it also gives dramatic contrasts. I also liked that he noted the actual colors you use don't matter, it's more about capturing the values, dark to light. I follosed his lead in using a deep purple for the darks, and I think it worked well.
The reference photo he used for the lesson didn't appeal to me that much, so I decided to be my usual impudent self and paint the teacher instead. This is my rendition of Unyime, using his flat-brush technique and starting with the darkest darks on the left side of his face. I lost some of the whites and lights I wanted to save, but overall I was surprised at how effective it can be to paint with a flat brush, defining planes rather than blending. I didn't do his technique justice, but I made a start on it, and his was a fun image to capture.
"Unyime"—pencil and watercolor on coldpress watercolor paper, 9x12 inches.
08 February 2024
Classical imagining
31 January 2024
Let's Face It lesson...kinda
25 January 2024
Afternoon play
20 January 2024
New media
I am generally resistant to new media (and also old media!), preferring to hone my skills in my two preferred "genres," watercolor and acrylic. Even though I can do stuff with pencil, charcoal, markers, or what-have-you, I'm not a fan; I get impatient having to shade with a pencil using a tiny little point (or even the side of the lead) when I can do it in a few strokes with a paintbrush and enjoy the effect more. But after last week's Let's Face It assignment using pan pastels, I was persuaded by instructor Mika Denny's comment that likened using them with an applicator as closely akin to painting, and ordered some implements and a few colors to try.
The assignment called for a base of tinted paper, and I know I have some tan and maybe some gray Canson Mi-Teintes lying around somewhere, but it's at the bottom of an archaeological layer of art supplies, printer boxes, and books, and there is a slim chance of finding it without more work than I wanted to put in, so instead I started by coating a piece of watercolor paper with a thin transparent wash of Payne's Gray to serve as my base, and messed about on social media while letting it dry. Unfortunately, it dried so light that the white pan pastel didn't even show up against it, so I tried again using ultramarine. It kind of defeats the purpose of the black-white-gray dynamic that was intended, but I did feel like the blue went with my model's expression, so there's that.
The whites and lights showed up much better on the blue background, while still giving a subdued effect to this moody abstracted gaze that Christa Forrest was wearing while waiting for her taped demo to begin. Christa has been one of our instructors for multiple Let's Face It years, and I have actually painted her once before, but that was a bright, cheery watercolor using intense Daler Rowney inks, and I really wanted to try conveying a different mood this time with the pan pastels.
My finished product is not near as sophisticated, detailed, or precise as the one demonstrated by Mika. Although I ordered the pastels, the applicators, and the tips, I didn't get a blending stump, and the black and white charcoal pencils I used (because I already had them) are pretty soft and messy, so I couldn't get the fine details around the eyes that she achieved in her demo. There's also a weird thing going on with that shadow on the side of her face—I think I messed with it too much when I brought color into the face. But...now I can say that I gave the pan pastels a shot, and although it's probably not a medium I will use much, I can see the appeal, particularly the softness of blending you are able to achieve when using the applicators and sponge tips rather than just pencils.
Here's the finished product: Christa in pan pastels on a watercolor background, 12x9 inches on coldpress watercolor paper.