I am soldiering on with my portraits, so I'll share a few recent ones with you. . .
Here is Carol. I am still painting in the same size but have flipped my canvas' into a vertical format. This gives opportunity to try different compositions from what I have been working on in the horizontal. This one is pretty straight forward. I have placed Carol slightly off centre with pretty even light falling across most of her face. I would describe this one as a high-key painting. The shadowed areas are pretty high value with plenty of reflected light bouncing into them. I chose to introduce some low value areas on each side of her face in order to accentuate her left earring and balance the composition on her right side. |
Torin is set up in artificial lighting because the outdoor lighting was too unreliable. I really do need a proper studio with plenty of north facing windows (whine, whine). My subject was a very patient sitter, so I was able to get my head into the final painting early on. I wanted to introduce his hands as well as his casual posture. I think it all hangs together pretty well. |
Steve was a good sport on this one. I really enjoyed working with him. His tats have great significance for him, so I wanted to make them a big part of this piece. I did have to respect the tattoo artist's copyright, so I kept things vague but recognizable to Steve. The orange flesh hues are complimented by blue and violet/white in the background. This thing really "pops". |