I heard my professor, Brian Hoover, say it 101 times and my own students hear me say it over and over again. There are only two things that can go wrong with a painting - shape and color. So the first thing I'm working on is creating a shape that will work. As I said, I am working from several different, very poor and very old references. If I were trying to create a generic person it would be one thing. But this is actually supposed to look like a particular person when I'm finished. So I have to be really careful about getting it right from the start.
K. Day 8
This post may not look a lot different from the last one. As I mentioned before, hair can be a real struggle to paint. As with the face, there is a lot of layering and building. After blocking in the different tones and values I came back with different brushes and began creating the feel of hair. I'll let this sit a while and then come and build some more.
K. is finally getting dressed! The details are progressing and she will soon be finished. Fabric is one of my favorite things to paint. It's amazing how just a few plays of light, shadow, hard lines and soft lines can create such a sense of movement, texture and depth. It's days like these that I really love to paint.
K Day 7
K. is growing some hair. Again, blocking in the main areas of highlights and shadows and basic shape. It's amazing how many different tones there are to hair.
Hair can be difficult to paint and I admit I generally really struggle with it. There is the temptation to paint every strand. But, as always, the eye does not see what we know to be true. So while we understand that she has a million single strands of hair, we don't see her that way. We see a general shape of what we know to be hair and we recognize a few individual strands that represent all the rest of them. Next time you see someone, pay more attention to how you see their hair.
So here is K's general shape of hair and next time I'll start working more on defining enough noticeable sections to make it readable and believable.
K. Day 2
Blocking in... I used the grid method to help me sketch the outline for K's face. The initial colors are quite like, but it gives me a place to start. I like to layer my colors so what goes on first is not necessarily, and very often not, the colors that will be there in the end. One of my favorite Brian Hoover quotes is, "There are only two things that can go wrong in a painting, either shape, or color". In fact, a few of us formed a group who painted outside of regular class hours and called ourselves the Paint and Color Club. Ahhhh... good times...
So while the initial color is not perfect, I'm working on shape and getting the foundation set so I build on it over time.
Stuck
I'm stuck on a painting. I'm under contract for the author of a children's book, so it's not a painting I can share visually. But I'm trying to do a sour face and struggling with the fact that he keeps looking either angry or constipated!
I've learned over the years that these are the problems that both make me crazy and make me love what I do. The struggle may not be fun, but once the puzzle is solved I am joyous. And that's what it is - a puzzle to be solved. What is that color combination, value adjustment, brush, stroke, or angle that I am missing that will suddenly make his face sing? Or pucker as the case may be...
In the end there is only one way to find the solution... Get back to the canvas...