Background blues

Well, it was around this point that I decided I just wasn't happy with how the background was turning out. In my highly manipulated photo reference, I really liked this idea, but in the painting, I found that it was highly distracting.

I kept trying to darken the iris falls to to move the eye back to the foreground, but, as you can see it's just not working. I think this was a faulty concept. Sometimes I have to remind myself that keeping things simple is often the best design framework.

Lunchtime painting lingers

Oh, the dog days of summer, when everything moves so slowly.....

This lunchtime painting certainly falls into that pattern. I've been carrying it around with me since May, I think, and it's still not finished. Someday, I keep saying.

This is a little larger than the other minis have been. It's about 5 inches square, and I heavily modified the source photo in Photoshop to create the effect I wanted . . . sharp foreground with a particularly washed out background, but with some supporting diagonal lines to hold the composition in place (the diagonals are some background stems and the shadows from the siding on my house).

I really liked the tension the background created. I also like the slanted angle and the offset focal point.


I applied most of my preliminary washes very wet-into-wet to achieve the soft, out of focus effect for the background. I'll continue to glaze in the iris to build up its definition.

Return to Pinnacle

I don't know the details yet, but I've been asked to return to the women's retreat at Camp Pinnacle this fall as an instructor!

The retreat is organized by the West Virginia University Extension Service office in Hardy County, led by the Community Educational Outreach Service (CEOS). I had a good time teaching a beginner watercolor class there last fall, despite the injury I sustained to my ankle (and my pride).

To read about the class experience last year, check the "Class" label in the list to the left.

A big difference!

Well, Kadie 2.o is finished, and when you place her next to Kadie 1.0....it's an amazing comparison!



The original Kadie (which can be seen through this blog . . . click on the "Kadie" label in the list to the left) was a more traditional head and shoulders portrait, but I've cropped this image to match the current Kadie's dimensions.

I was feeling a little unhappy with some aspects of the new Kadie, especially in her hair, but I readily admit that all that unhappiness is washing away as I stare at these two paintings side by side. It's so much better than the first portrait, particularly in the ruddiness of her complexion.

The palette of Jane Paul Angelhart is so much more flexible and so much more vibrant. In the first portrait I was struggling with Raw Sienna, Cobalt Blue and a mixed red called Dragon's Blood. In the new version, it's Quin Coral, Perinone Orange, Quin Red, Cobalt Violet, Quin Gold, Cobalt Blue, Quin Burnt Orange, Quin Violet and more! And somehow, despite the numerous pigments in play, they all work together beautifully!

To see Jane's full palette, visit this page on her website: http://www.angelhart-portraits.com/Palette/index_palette.htm

I'm going to take a break from portraits for a bit, but I'm so excited about the possibilities!

Kadie Redux

On the last day of the Angelhart workshop, I decided that I would apply the techniques to my Kadie portrait -- the first portrait I had ever painted, which I finished in the spring of 2009.

Well, let's just say that what I did at the workshop doesn't merit sharing. I got the shadow areas too opaque too quickly, and tossed the painting as a false start.

So when I got home, I decided to start again.


Here are the early stages of the painting. The original painting was a more traditional head-and-shoulders image and included her left hand as she was holding it up (I think she was in the process of waving goodbye when I snapped the reference photo). For this exercise, I cropped to just her face. I never liked how her hand came out in the original. It was badly drawn and out of proportion to her face.

The face washes are mostly built with quin gold, quin coral and perinone orange, all pigments that Angelhart heavily relies on for building skin tones.

These are pigments from Daniel Smith, which first I worried about because I thought they were so much more expensive. Turns out, when you compare the same-size tube, they're not any more expensive than Winsor & Newton. It's just that W&N offers pigments in 5 ml tubes, so instinctively you think that paying $13.44 for a 15 ml tube of Daniel Smith Cobalt Blue is terrible. In fact, the 14 ml tube of W&N Cobalt Blue costs more -- $15.72 (priced at www.dickblick.com).



Here I am still building up skin tones and adding darks to help me gauge values.



And here's pretty much where I am right now. I've done a bit more work since this image was taken, but it's been nearly two weeks since I last touched any of my brushes. I hope to get back into the groove a little bit this weekend. I've got a lot to do on her hair (which is very different than the approach I took with the original), and I think I've got to lighten some areas around her face.

I'm really struggling with trying to make colors bold enough to be seen from across a room, but also work when seen from only a short distance. I guess that's where working on large pieces is a benefit. You can eliminate the "close-up" view from the equation because you can only process the image from a distance.

Angelhart workshop

Days and days after the close of the workshop, and I finally get around to talking about what a wonderful experience it was!

Jane Paul Angelhart, whose work can be seen at www.angelhart-portraits.com, led our 11-person class through a couple of demonstration portraits, stressing color mixing, glazing, and "mapping" -- what she terms the facial details you draw with your brush directly on the paper.

In essence, she explains, she goes about portraits in reverse. Most of the time, watercolorists are instructed to lay down large washes at the start, work from light to dark, and develop the details later in the work.

For portraits, however, Jane argues for going into the details at the onset, particularly in the areas of the eyes, nose and mouth. Her method, she believes, allows her to capture the subject's likeness at an early stage, giving her the confidence to apply those larger washes.

Her glazing techniques also use those initial detailed areas as "roadmaps." They don't disappear under a light skin-tone wash, so they help guide her through the development of the facial structure as she builds up layers of glowing colors.

Her palette is also a point she stresses. Most of the colors are from Daniel Smith, and nearly all are transparent. As Jane puts it, muddy colors make mud. (Her website includes a link to her complete palette if you'd like to learn more. Look under the "DVD" link and click on her palette at the bottom of that page.)

I didn't get all the the pigments prior to the class, but I got the basics, and Jane was more than willing to share a squirt of her paints to help us see how she achieves such glowing colors. I've already built a wish list to pick up some more of the paints sometime soon.

Here's an example of one of the structured demos Jane provided:






These small works (about 7x10 inches) are not in perfect sequence because they are live demo pieces Jane works on during her classes, but they show that progression of mapping features first, then adding some darks to help gauge values.

Jane also advocates for mixing colors on the paper rather than on the palette, laying pigments next to one another and letting them blend. Controlling the amount of water in the brush matters immensely in this sort of paint application, so she regularly blots her brush with a terrycloth towel to avoid unexpected backruns, etc.

Jane also cautions that too many blues and purples applied too early can deaden skin tones. She applies bright reds and oranges, along with greens as a neutral tone, and only later goes into the cool blues and purples.

The avoidance of blues and purples was the issue that hampered me most. I so badly wanted to dive into some cobalt blue when perplexed by a shadow area. But, as you can see above, Jane has depicted beautiful shadows and highlights across the young girl's face without resorting to those kind of color choices.


Here, several class participants look over our versions of Jane's demo. For a group generally inexperienced with portraiture, we had many positive outcomes with this demo! Click on the photo to see a larger version of the image. My version is to the far right, sans hair and background.


Here's a closer view of where I got on this demo. I was being very meticulous on layering light washes of color to achieve the right effect, so I didn't make a lot of progress.

The last day of the workshop, Jane encouraged us to bring in our own materials -- whether a failed painting from the past, a photograph, etc. I decided I would try my Kadie portrait again.

You may remember Kadie. I completed her early in 2009, and she was my first attempt at a portrait. I was very proud of her at the time, but now I'm not so happy with her given all the new ideas I have on glazing, shadow colors, etc. (To see my work-in-progress discussions of Kadie, search for the "Kadie"blog post label in the list to the left.)

Kadie 2.0 is nearly half finished. I'll post images of her progress soon.


And here is Jane Paul Angelhart! At the end of a busy last day, Jane went over the displayed works with everyone (mine is behind her head -- look for the bright green sunglasses). She encouraged everyone to keep painting, and also encouraged us to stay in touch with one another.

As I said, it was a wonderful workshop, and I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to meet Jane.

Workshop!

Well, it's been a busy month so far (thus no new posts), and I've just completed an amazing workshop with Jane Paul Angelhart on watercolor portraits.

I'm not a regular "workshopper" as some artists are. I've confined myself to about one per year for the last six years, and they've all been somewhat regional, so my workshop observations and experiences are limited. That said, I think this was the most amazing three days I've ever spent with a brush in hand.

Jane, I think, has really opened up some ideas for me. For this workshop, the approach to energetic glazing (my description) was directly related to portraiture, but I'm already thinking about how to inject the philosophy into other paintings.

Again, it was an amazing three days, and I want to thank Janet Lee Wright for making it all possible.

Finally finished

Well, he's finished. I'm sure there are all sorts of things I could do to tweak this or that, but to be honest, I'm getting tired of him (the painting, not Zack, of course). I've decided to call this a successful stepping stone and let him be. I'll do better the next time, I'm sure.

In a related topic, that next time may be sooner rather than later. Janet Wright, the teacher of the portrait class, contacted everyone in great excitement a few days ago because she was on the verge of landing Jane Paul Angelhart for a portrait workshop in Harrisonburg, Va. How this all came to be is a long story, but the short of it was that Janet needed to find 10 participants in just a few days to pull the workshop off.

So, I'll be taking the Angelhart workshop on May 20-22 somewhere on the campus of Eastern Mennonite University. It's only a little over an hour from here, so I'll drive back and forth. Hope to get even more advice, and maybe I can improve on my next painting of Zack. But I've got to work on one of little sister Avery first!

Hair!

I'm getting close. I'm going to avoid going back into his face and concentrate on trying to get his hair and his shirt set. But I feel like I'm getting close.....

The Eyes Have It (Sort of)

I've really been struggling with Zack's eyes, as I had feared. I alternate between panic attacks and satisfaction. In the end, I keep fiddling with them. Good thing Arches paper is tough.