Tag: portrait

The Gouache Class Has Ended

For the past 5 weeks I have been attending a gouache class. It has been one of the most fun and creative classes I have taken. Painting all of a sudden took on the element of play. My tight-ass self was so happy to untight-ass! I totally believe in play and we all, old and young and in between, benefit from that wildly creative and unrestrictive garden of no rules (well, within reason!)

As I mentioned before, my teacher worked for Disney and Warner in animation. 40+ years of experience brings knowledge of techniques and tricks. 5 weeks was short but in the fall there will be an 8 week class, and I will be there. Because of her background in animation, her knowledge of technique is very different than many online teachers and it is based on practical experience. She takes this knowledge and applies it in a clear and creative way. Though we got “samples” to copy from, there was never a “do it this way” but rather a “use your skills to figure out how to do this” as well as applying new skills.

First off, some of the samples we got to work with were clearly identified, and others I have forgotten. If you are an artist whose work we used, let me know if you see your work here.

This exercise was assigned to the class to learn how to do color gradations. Jess Chung, on You Tube, had a study to which we linked and followed along as homework. It was easy and not easy – gradations can be difficult in gouache. What really worked for me was doing the waves. That was an eye-opener. Her video is below.

From this tutorial we moved on to Mary Blair, a famous Disney animation artist who rose to a prominent position because of her creative prowess in a time when most (if not all) animators were men. If you are familiar with “It’s a Small World” at Disneyland in Anaheim, CA, or from the 1964 World’s Fair in NYC, you will be familiar with her work.

The above tree is done on black paper and is derived, I think, from some of Blair’s sketches for the animated film “Alice in Wonderland” by Disney. We did the tree, but the Cheshire Cat was in the picture as well as Alice.

To get the blue-white streak, we mixed blue and white together, very dry, and brushed it all across the black paper upon which we painted. From there, the tree was painted in, over the blue-white streaks (yep, black on black!). Gouache’s opacity worked very well here, as you can see. Then the moon and highlights were added. It makes for a wonderfully mysterious scene.

When I first saw the picture I was thinking “how am I going to paint the blue and white around the tree shape?” This is negative painting and it would be hard. The solution of painting over the colored paint was an eye-opening bit of information and technique.

From Blair we moved on to Frida Kahlo, the Mexican artist who always surprises with her intense colors, rather primitive and surrealistic paintings. Our samples were, I think, derived from people who did Kahlo’s portrait in gouache. Kahlo did not work much – if at all – in gouache, but instead preferred oils. The simple and colorful style of the samples involved utilizing different techniques we learned as well as letting our inner child out to play with colors and non-realistic portraiture. The patterns and colors were fun to do.

And our final artist for inspiration were the paper cutouts by Henri Matisse. Most of us are familiar with his work, so I will not go into details here.

For this project, we painted shapes, such as rectangles and squares, in gouache and then cut them out. From there, we mounted them on a colored piece of paper using glue. I am not sure if we were supposed to do it all on paper painted in gouache – such as leaf shapes – and then cut and paste to the paper and underlying bits already glued on. I just used thick gouache and painted on the white shapes, leaves, circles, dots, and stars in various gouache colors and black and white gouache.

Playtime and different perspective – it was by far a fun, fun class! I wonder what I will do with what that class gave me.

Quick Capture

Yesterday I went to my portrait class with a rather meh attitude. I don’t really like doing portraits or painting people. The fact is, portraits are intimidating and scare me! I get frustrated if I cannot make my picture look like my subject matter. As far as other subjects, buildings and ocean waves get me, too, but they don’t have to be as precise as a person. I think the stylized art of different cultures as humans are depicted is often quite adequate for the job. Still, as I have progressed through doing pictures of people on paper, I am getting a bit out of the perfectionist rut. To me, the spirit of something is more important than accuracy.

I went to Pixabay to find something to draw that had people in it. I found an especially nice one and used two of the people in the picture as my subject matter. I spent about 90 minutes doing this sketch seen below.

I used toned paper, a Blackwing pencil, a 6B, and whatever white pencils I had on hand – wax colored pencil, white charcoal (probably conte) and something else. Drawing freehand was what I did for the most part, but used my calipers for rough verification of proportions. It worked out fairly well.

Once the rough shapes were down and directional lines for the heads, the details of light and dark were added. Looking at the shapes of the light and dark are what give dimension to a picture of any subject as these give shape. Working through a drawing like this, I go from large areas of light / dark to smaller areas. This is when the subtleties work themselves into a picture.

In some ways I really limited myself – using a waxy white pencil and graphite is not a great combination as the white pencil could not be erased. So, a bit of pressure and a prayer – some areas worked out better than others.

Above is the final result. I am fairly pleased with it. It worked out because I wasn’t stressed out about perfection and was feeling rather smug that my eyeballing things was verified by the proportional calipers no matter how sloppily used.

Toned paper, Blackwing pencil, 6B pencil, white colored pencil and white charcoal pencil, about 9×12 paper.

A Man from the Mountains

In between life and knitting disasters and housecleaning and purge-atory (I got rid of a lot of junk last week), I have been painting a portrait in acrylic over the last few sessions of my figure painting class. I used one of the many wonderful portraits available from Pixabay.

Painting this portrait was a challenge. I did not want to do a photographic reproduction. My idea was something moody and a bit sketchy, more so as I think such a style is more easily done in acrylics (which I swore to work on!) than a realistic rendition of the person himself. I painted using more transparent paint and scumbled a lot of the paint onto the canvas. Some areas don’t even have paint on the surface, or very little. Layers and glazes were built up. The quick drying quality of acrylics makes this easy to do in a classroom.

My palette was pretty limited, too. I used carbon black, ultramarine blue, raw umber, cadmium red light, titanium white, and yellow ochre. First step was to sketch in the man, working on proportions and then mixing general areas of color, slowly moving into details. I stepped back and forth to look at my painting.

What really attracted me to this portrait was the lighting, the expressiveness and rather mysterious quality of the man – he could be from so many places. My first impressions is he is a man from a remote part of the world, a man who works hard and labors with his hands to provide for those he is responsible. I wanted to catch this quality – a rugged ability to endure.

I think I will hang this on my wall to enjoy. Yeah, pretty pleased! That is after I correct the mistake under the man’s mustache . . .

Heavy body acrylic paint, cotton canvas panel, 11×14.

Black + White = Grey

Yesterday was the beginning of new portrait class session with my favorite teacher. Having done 2 sessions with her, mostly with media within my comfort zone, I decided that I am going to conquer my general dislike for acrylic paints and portraits by painting them. So, armed with a black and white photo from Pixabay, I found an interesting man’s face as subject matter, zoomed into one eye, the nose, and the mouth.

For the surface, I am using Canson’s paper for acrylic and oil paints. It has a smooth, linen-like texture and responds well. The bit of tooth is pleasant under the brush. My colors are heavy-body acrylic paints from Golden and Liquitex and are simply ivory black and titanium white.

I consider this study to be a WIP – work in progress. The mouth is too small and needs to be re-worked. The guy’s nose looks like it was broken a few times in the photo and I have tried to capture its asymmetry. The paint under the eye of the skin is heavier and more opaque than a lot of the rest of the painting. It was applied first but then I realized that working in thinner washes of black and white might make for better shadow and light rendition. This is such a learning process! I am also using smaller brushes than I might otherwise – I want the details to be details, not big blobs of paint for this man’s face.

Overall, I am really pleased with how this is coming along. A couple of fellow students in my general painting class do such wonderful portraits and people that I decided to push myself. Acrylics will be my primary focus for awhile. I want to master them, learn how to work with them, and like them rather than cringe when faced with a tube of plastic paint.

Heavy-body acrylic paint by Liquitex and Golden, limited palette, Canson’s acrylic / oil painting paper, 9×12.