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.

Opaque watercolor

I'd like to talk about the workshop I took at the Beverley Street Studio School in Staunton, Va., (www.bssschool.org) a few weeks ago with Charlottesville, Va.-based artist Rick Weaver (www.richardweaver.net) on sketching with opaque watercolors.

I was a little confused regarding the term "opaque watercolors" prior to the class. I realized that some people  use that description when they are talking about gouache. Searching online, I found that some painters, such as Bill James (http://masterartist.fineartstudioonline.com), use gouache regularly, albeit thinly, while describing his paintings as watercolors. Others, such as Donna Zagotta (www.donnazagotta.com) mix traditional watercolors with permanent white gouache. Donna has a wonderful blog post that describes this method in detail (http://donnazagotta.com/blog/?p=1761).

Once I got the materials list for the class, I saw that no gouache was required, but an extra-large tube of Titanium White watercolor was needed.

I had first learned of watercolor artists using Titanium White when I read a feature article on Jeannie McGuire (www.jeanniemcguire.com), from whom I later took a workshop. But Jeannie's use of the unorthodox white isn't particularly opaque -- it just adds a sense of body to her compositions.

As it turns out, Rick Weaver's use of Titanium White is much more opaque than I had previously seen in watercolors. But also Rick comes at each work from an oil painter's perspective.

As he explained in the workshop, he had started using watercolors for a practical reason -- it was easier to travel with watercolors than with oils because of all the restrictions airlines and the TSA now enforce regarding the transport of chemicals. So watercolors have become an ideal sketch medium for Rick to use while traveling.

However, his use of watercolor is consistent with the kind of painting technique you would find in oil or acrylic painting.You don't save whites. You paint over elements you may not like. And nuance in paint application and paint edges is very important.

His palette includes a lot of opaque watercolors as a start (cerulean, cad red and cad yellow, yellow ochre) as well as some heavily staining colors (pthalo green, permanent rose, dioxine violet). And then nearly everything gets mixed with varying levels of Titanium White before being applied to the paper. Water was used mostly to clean off his brush and to get a yogurt-like paint consistency.

I found this kind of painting to be very difficult. I've never worked with anything but traditional watercolors, so I had a hard time simply getting the paint off my brush. With the white mixed in, colors actually dry darker on the paper, which is the opposite of my normal watercolor experience where transparent glazes dry lighter. My inexperience definitely showed, as Rick's comments to me mostly stressed the need to move away from transparent applications and to go more opaque.

One interesting element in his painting setup is his use of colored matboard as a painting support. Like a pastel artist, the use of a toned background was often helpful, it seemed, in building body in the painted areas. I started off on plain, natural white 300-pound Arches, and really struggled to get opaque. Not having any matboard with me, I used another participant's idea and toned some white watercolor paper with a staining color. Once that dried, it was more like Rick's toned piece of matboard -- and I found it easier to work the next day because of that head start. But it was still a difficult process for me to work through.

I've not tried anything else since the workshop, but I have a little travel palette now labeled "Opaque," and I want to play with the idea again at some point. And, I'd like to know if there are other artists out there using watercolors in this kind of opaque application.

Back to class

 

During my absence, I've not painted a great deal, but I have taken two painting workshops. I find that I have to take workshops to reinvigorate my attitude from time to time.

The first of these workshops, in mid-April was with my mentor, Jane Paul Angelhart. I've now taken three workshops from her, and I would never have attempted portraiture without her influence.

The little girl above is one of the class exercises Jane distributes to her classes. She provides photo references and 7x11 pieces of watercolor paper with the basic outlines of the subject already in place. The reason she does this is to expedite the instruction process. This is not a drawing class. The workshop's goal is to teach people how to use her particular palette of "circus colors" in depicting a child's face. So the focus is on mixing and glazing pigments.

That said, it's always amazing to see how a group of nine participants, all starting from the same point, with the same photo reference, end up with nine very different interpretations of the subject.

I have worked on this project for a few hours since the workshop. My goal has been to try to push the rounded shapes of her face, and to more accurately depict the darker side of her face. In my portrait of A., I don't think I went far enough in creating a sense of distance and shadow on the far side. So far, I've been more successful here. But then, I also find it so much easier to work on the portraits of subjects when I don't know them personally. For me, it's much more stressful when you know the subject.

A. finished

I've reached a strange new point where my paintings look better in person than they do once they are photographed or scanned. It used to be the other way...I don't know if this is a sign of progress, but it's certainly worrisome given that most shows are selected by digital images now.

At any rate, A. is finished. I've done some good things...and some not so good things...in this painting. But it's all a learning process and it's time to move on to the next project.

A. under development

I'm still working on A.'s portrait. As usual, I feel disappointed now that I've moved beyond those initial washes. I love the look of glowing, fresh paint in those first moments. I think that look matches the fresh look of a child's skin.

But, I have yet to master making those washes vivid enough to stand up to scrutiny from across a room. So, I have to keep working -- and I lose the freshness in the process.

Nonetheless, I'm still generally pleased with this...it does look like A. -- a critical measure of success -- and I think there are good elements on which I can build.

Portrait of A.

Well, my last painting hit a rough patch and I now face a do-over. So, to clear my mind, I decided to jump into a little portrait of A.

This too had a rough beginning. I trashed my first start, took a deep breath, re-watched my DVD of Jane Angelhart painting a portrait, and tried again. So far, this one is working out. I've got my fingers crossed.

Building form

 

I am working on a new painting -- and I've really given the paper a workout with this one. My early washes were much too aggressive, so I've done quite of bit of scrubbing with sponges and brushes to regain control.

I "know" as more detail is added, the preliminary washes will recede and feel natural, but sometimes it's difficult to "know" one thing and "feel" another.

Eggs for Breakfast

I've decided to call this this one finished. I felt as though I was on the verge of overworking some areas, so I have pulled back and left some areas as suggestions.

I ended up reversing my intentions of warmer colors in the foreground, cooler in the background. That wasn't intentional -- it just happened that way. I did try to get some warmer elements into the shadows near the front, but the overall temperature feels cooler than I wanted.

So, I had to utilize edges to create the sense of depth. There are sharper edges with the shadows and highlights in the front and softer edges in the background. I hope that does the trick.