Drawing People Faces

I've got two more victims on the drawing board, both inspired by more photos courtesy of frankin (PMP).  I liked the idea that their hands made it in the photo but I was concerned I might have problems rendering them. It's been a long time since I drew a pair of hands. Boy, was I wrong. Much to my surprise the hands turned out to be fairly easy. The girl's hat however became a nightmare. I don't like ellipses. Or they don't like me. Whatever.....anyhoo it's taken me two days and I'm still not entirely happy with the hat but I'm going to make do.

Above: the man drawing 1. the original drawing   2. a continuous line drawing

the girl 1. & 2. two tries. I never did conquer the hat. I finally resorted to tracing the darn thing.

The Cellist ~ complete

I did manage to finished this up yesterday but it was too late to photograph it. Sadly it's so dark and gloomy here today this took on a rather greyed down appearance but I did the best I could in my photo editor.

I'm quite pleased with the way things turned out. It all came together 1-2-3. Love when that happens! I'm happy with the textures, the colors and fun mood of the piece. Her hair got the same treatment as the border. The only difference, I used oranges and reds on the tissue paper. I used all Daniel Smith colors. A tip: try laying on a wet wash of DS Perinone Orange, then dropping on a bit of DS Duochrome Hibiscus and letting them both mingle on your substrate. Gorgeous. I had toned down the border with a layer of white acrylic (see prior post) but I wanted another border treatment. I taped off where I wanted to create another border effect, then lifted some of the white acrylic with 70% alcohol. Voila!

The Cellist ~ WIP 2

Another quick update. I'm hoping to finish this today. We'll see. I had no clear idea where I was going with this when I started. I'm letting this painting tell me what it needs. All I know for sure? This is fun!

The Cellist ~ WIP

Quick update. This is my latest project inspired by a photo I found on PMP submitted by franklin. I'm always trying new things and this time I decide to stain tissue paper with pure watercolor and tear into pieces which I then adhered to my working paper. I chose various violets and golds, one of my favorite palettes. I think the effect is quite nice but I'll have to knock it back a bit for this application. I don't want the border to distract too much from my COI.

Self Portrait ~ complete

After tweaks

I finished this yesterday but took a day to give it a good 'look'. I didn't take any more progress shots unfortunately. Once I started painting I was in the zone and didn't stop until I'd almost completed it.

When I started painting I wasn't quite sure what direction I was going to take this. I let the painting tell me instead. Am I happy? I can't say I'm not. It's a bit more cartoon-y than I had envisioned but I see that it's the thicker black outlines that create that effect. I seem to have a tricky face to capture and harsh lines around certain facial features create a loss of likeness. Another thing I need is a better brush for fine line work with acrylics. Too much Micron pen for me. I really didn't want that look however I am very happy that it turned out as well as it did seeing how this is a portrait which I rarely paint and I'm still learning how to work with acrylics. Note to self: maybe less texture next time if I want smooth line work.

I did wind up tweaking this. The missing line work on the face just looked wrong.

Self Portrait ~ WIP

In keeping with the collage portrait theme I'm doing a self portrait. I'm trying to remember to take photos as I work. So far, so good. ;)

A Redheaded Girl

Recently I've been interested in people's faces. Painting them, that is. I did a search of PMP and found some wonderful photos of men, women and young people to use as references and this is my first go. This lovely girl was not a redhead but I felt she should be. In fact I think all women should be a redhead at least once in their lives. I was for about 10 years and I loved every minute.

My approach was to start by adhering bits of tissue paper to my substrate, in this case an 8" x 8" piece of 140# watercolor paper. I wanted to create texture. When all was dry I used a couple of my homemade stamps to stamp most of the surface. I transferred my drawing to my paper, then added pieces of magazine pages to the girl's hair. With my palette in mind I began painting with acrylic paints and this is my result. It turned out the way I had envisioned so I'm pretty satisfied. 

I think for my next project I'm going to do a self portrait. It's something I've never done.

Reference photo courtesy of Neil A. Kingsbury (PMP)