Bright Eyes

Here is another of the class exercises from Jane Paul Angelhart's class. I did most of this while the workshop was going on, with a few extra touches done since. I think I need to get a background started before doing much more with this little girl's face. It's hard to gauge the shadows and cast shadows against the plain white background.

Returning to A.'s portrait

While I was able to look at my class exercise portrait with new understanding, I also pulled out my portrait of A. And I could see much that needed refined in her face as well. Here's where it is at the present time. If you look to my earlier post about A., I think you can see some of the changes I've made.

It's a trifle difficult to explain everything that I've done (I get in the moment and forget), but mostly I started seeing more of the nuance in the shadowed shapes that create the roundness of the facial features.

I had tried at an earlier stage to darken the far side of her face, but I lost my nerve and blotted out most of what I had done. This time, with the background in place, I was able to work more on that side. I think I've done a much better job this time. That far side of her face really seems like it's turned away into the shadow now. And, most importantly, I haven't lost any of the likeness. In fact, I think it's more like her now.

The chin is another area that I worked on that is important to A.'s likeness. It's more rounded now and a better three-dimensional shape.

I've included a close-up of A.'s features here for a better look.

I suspect that if I put this away again, I'll see even more the next time, but I really think I want to set this aside for good this time. I need to move on to new projects!

Trying to push things

I've not been painting very much of late. My "studio" space became part of a home improvement project, and it's only been in the last few days that I've gotten the room cleaned up and put things back in their proper places.

Since we are still putting the house back in shape and I don't want to start anything new, I decided to pull out the class exercises from Jane Paul Angelhart's class in April. It's amazing what fresh eyes can see!

I decided to work on the cooler parts of the shadows. Over and over again, I've heard Jane say, "Form is always turning." So I've I tried to breathe some life into the many forms that make up this face.

To explain, Jane always attributes many of her instructive comments to Yuqi Wang, a friend of hers from a previous work situation. Wang, by the way, is an amazing artist. And he's absolutely right. As the light hits the rounded forms of the face, the cheek, the chin, the lips, etc., you see the complexity of those shapes converging.

I'm getting better with these nuanced shapes, but I've still got a lot of work to do before I'm nearly as good as I want to be.