Unfinished Portrait (May 20th)
So this one... I've had this source image on my HD for a while but I couldn't ever figure out a chance to use it. While an extremely striking image with the popping color of the dress there were a few things that made it tough. First in the original she's either exhaling smoke or sticking gum out of her mouth. Second there's a lot of activity going on behind her which as I was painting, made me realize I was starting to "crowd out" the figure in front. Finally I came to realize the use of directed flash made for... difficult lighting choices. While the legs and arms (which I liked how they turned out) had a nice classic framing of dark edges, the lighting was not so easy to discern on her face, dress or a lot of the rest of the image. It's not that it isn't a great photo but that I'm coming to realize two truths of painting: high contrast and left-to-right (or up-and-down) shadow regimes are easy to do. Painting something that is lit from your perspective, unless high contrast can be a bit difficult.
My frustration and a bit of boredom resulted in me shortcutting on the background and on the dress to try and finish it up and getting something that I could salvage. At this point my medium started to congeal and I busted up my fine tip brush. Instead of trying to perfect it I kind of went for a compromise. I still think there are things to like about it but I'm in exploratory mode: I want to keep working towards "something" and so I'm going to prefer getting "reps" instead of trying to polish every last piece. It'll look good filling that one bit of empty wall I have in my living room :P
Unfinished Portrait (May 20th)
Oil on Canvas
24" x 30"
Unfinished Portrait (May 20th)
So this one... I've had this source image on my HD for a while but I couldn't ever figure out a chance to use it. While an extremely striking image with the popping color of the dress there were a few things that made it tough. First in the original she's either exhaling smoke or sticking gum out of her mouth. Second there's a lot of activity going on behind her which as I was painting, made me realize I was starting to "crowd out" the figure in front. Finally I came to realize the use of directed flash made for... difficult lighting choices. While the legs and arms (which I liked how they turned out) had a nice classic framing of dark edges, the lighting was not so easy to discern on her face, dress or a lot of the rest of the image. It's not that it isn't a great photo but that I'm coming to realize two truths of painting: high contrast and left-to-right (or up-and-down) shadow regimes are easy to do. Painting something that is lit from your perspective, unless high contrast can be a bit difficult.
My frustration and a bit of boredom resulted in me shortcutting on the background and on the dress to try and finish it up and getting something that I could salvage. At this point my medium started to congeal and I busted up my fine tip brush. Instead of trying to perfect it I kind of went for a compromise. I still think there are things to like about it but I'm in exploratory mode: I want to keep working towards "something" and so I'm going to prefer getting "reps" instead of trying to polish every last piece. It'll look good filling that one bit of empty wall I have in my living room :P
Unfinished Portrait (May 20th)
Oil on Canvas
24" x 30"