Total Art Soul - for artists

This is pretty much a continuation of the previous post. I worked on two paintings at the same time, and it was a very interesting learning experience. Here are the progress pictures of the 9×12 almost three-quarter figure portrait of a lady in Icelandic national costume.

As usual, I started with sketches. This one was only one sketch that I altered many times trying to decide on the background (the reference photo, taken in a studio, has a very boring tan-beige-taupe-bleh background). On a totally irrational impulse, I made the background red. Maybe as a response to the boredom of the background in the photo?

Mark's Icelandic Mom - red

Mark's Icelandic Mom - gold, direct light

Mark's Icelandic Mom - gold diffused light

Well, this was the “fire” part of The Land of Fire and Ice, and most people I consulted (including those of you who so kindly left a comment to my post about it) felt that the figure disappeared in the intense red and/or gold background. So I tried the “ice” side of it, together with a mossy-medowy green:

And we finally settled on the background above, a hint at the glaciers and the grasses. On to the drawing:

(and no, I don’t like masking.. or doing details in general. I like splashing paint.)

And the completed painting:

In addition to learning a couple more things about working small in watercolor (hands were hard!) and spending hours figuring stuff out with an anatomy book (granted, I love doing that), I expanded my knowledge about Iceland beyond Bjork and volcanoes a little.

Question: how do you change a large area in a watercolor painting (like the background in those sketches) without painful scrubbing out and washing off?

Answer: Cover it with acrylic gesso and paint on top!(that’s what I did) Or use gouache. Or acrylics. Or pastels

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I decided to stop fiddling with this painting and call it ready :) But if my patience allowed me to I could keep adding details in the face forever...but that's part of why it would never get ready...so I've forced myself to finish his jacket, shirt, tie and hair today. I've also duplicated the skin layer and added an overlay to it for the sake of deepen the shadows a bit. In comparison to his dark jacket he was very pale before I did that. And we don't want him to faint now, do we? Didn't think so :p

Anyway...it's been fun :D I might do it again some time ;) Thanks for your patience and thanks for following this progress :D

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Just a fast post to show the progress on this painting. I haven't done a huge amount of work since last time, but the following has happened nevertheless:

The ear is done, with all it's highlights and deep shadows. I might correct those a bit later when I'm done with the rest. It all depends on what it will look like in the end. Since he's twisting his head slightly towards the camera, it creates folds and wrinkles on his neck. Mainly folds actually. And they're darn difficult to get right. At the moment I can't get rid of the "string-around-the-neck" look and it bugs me. I'm hoping that I can correct that later if I leave it alone for a while. I've painted some spots in the skin since I don't want him to look like he was made out of wax. There will be more of that later as well.

At the moment I'm painting hair. So far there's two shades of light grey and two shades of dark grey in the first layer. It's just in the beginning so what I've focused on is the hair line and there will be a lot of thinner hairs added before that's done.

That's it for now :)

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