Tag: Faces

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Art Faces Gouache Painting People Portrait

My Bestie B Being Silly: Portrait in Gouache

Portrait of B in gouache
B Being Silly, gouache on paper, 9×6”

My bestie B was giving away an arm chair and my sister asked for a photo of her sitting in it to get an idea of its size. So she perched in the chair, made a face and took a selfie.

I cropped it down to just her pretty face to try to capture her sense of fun in a painting. After 3 drawings I finally got everything at the right angles. My brain kept trying to straighten everything out and make it symmetrical.

Then came 3 paintings. The first one went directly in the trash. The second one was better but when it reached gouache’s “ugly stage” I lost my confidence and started over again.

This is the third one. I can see a few things I could fix if I kept working on it, but my current goal is to stop painting sooner rather than too late. Also I’m using gouache these days partly because it doesn’t allow the forever fiddling that oil does. At a certain point gouache just says, “Nope” and stops cooperating if you try to keep adding paint or fiddling.

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Art Faces Gouache Painting People Portrait

Brian from Police IT Department: Gouache Portrait

Brian from IT, Gouache on paper 9×12”

His name isn’t really Brian. I took a photo of him from the TV screen when I watching a European detective show on BritBox because I found the colors mesmerizing.

I don’t remember which show it was, but he was the sweet, smart guy who could always be relied on to find the solutions on his computer. Even though most of those European detective/police procedural shows follow a similar formula, with a similar set of characters (like the sweet IT nerd guy), I still thoroughly enjoy them.

Photo reference from the TV

It was challenging but fun to draw and paint from the above photo reference. I really wanted to capture his sweet expression and the vivid colors. It took me 4 drawings and then starting over after abandoning a painting before I was satisfied. I had such a great time with the headphones! But I got lazy with his shirt and left off the plaid because I was ready to move on.

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Art Faces Oil Painting Portrait

Fallen Star: Portrait of Justin Timberlake after DWI

Justin Timberlake After DUI Bust, Zorn palette, oil on paper, 11×7’

There was something so poignant about the news photo of Justin Timberlake after his bust for Driving While Intoxicated and I wanted to capture it in paint. Then something hilarious happened when I was preparing the photo of the painting for posting.

I clicked on the ℹ️ symbol in Apple Photos to make sure the picture I was selecting was the correct version for posting. I noticed a little white dot appeared in the middle of the photo. When I clicked on the dot, Apple AI/Siri told me that this was a painting of Robert Fergusson painted by 1700s Scottish painter, Alexander Runciman. WTF?

WTF Siri?
Robert Fergusson by Alexander Runciman
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Art Oil Painting Portrait

Portrait of Ilhan Omar’s Daughter

Isra Hirsi, daughter of Ilhan Omar, oil on paper, 8×7.5”

I was so struck by the photo (see below) of Isra Hirsi, the daughter of Representative Ilhan Omar, when I saw it in the New York Times. She was being interviewed after she was arrested for participating in a pro-Palestinian protest at her university. The look on her face seemed to say so much.

First sketch, 10×8”

After I sketched her (above) I had a dilemma. I loved the sketch but could see that I had gotten the dimensions very wrong. So do I paint from my sketch or try again to get the correct likeness? I decided to do another sketch, get it right and then do the painting.

As usual I got about halfway through the 12×9” painting, wasn’t happy with it and abandoned it, choosing to start over. I went for a smaller format since I was working from a screenshot of a tiny photo and was relatively happy with the results.

I used the Zorn palette to simplify things, but added a few other colors for her shirt.

Here’s the reference photo.

Reference photo from NYT

Here’s the original article in the New York Times.

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Art Faces Oil Painting Painting People Portrait Self Portrait

Getting Wiggy

Selfie with Wig, oil on paper, 10×7“

My social media feeds kept showing me wigs (how do they know my formerly boisterously curly hair was getting thin, grey and wimpy?) The influencers looked so cute in their (probably very expensive) wigs that I decided to try one.

A dog park acquaintance who always wears a wig recommended I order one from Temu. It was cheap, hideous, huge, hanging over my eyes and shedding. It quickly went back to Temu, a store I’m not a fan of.

Then a friend pointed me to some higher-quality inexpensive wigs on Amazon. I bought the one I’m wearing in the picture because it reminded me of what my hair looked like in my 20s: long, thick, wavy, chestnut color.

Unfortunately, not being anywhere close to my 20s anymore, I looked ridiculous in it close up. But it was fun to take a selfie wearing it and then paint a self-portrait before returning the wig.

About Painting: I recently watched an online painting video with Carol Peebles. Her guidance about comparative measuring in portrait drawing clarified so many things I’d been confused about. It helped me to get a likeness with much less struggling.

Painting is so much more fun when starting with a good drawing! I’m really happy with how this turned out. I think it’s my favorite self-portrait ever and I’ve done at least 50 of them over the years.

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Art Drawing People Portrait Sktchy Watercolor

Handsome Artist as Grumpy Guy (Zorn Palette)

Watercolor portrait of Richard B.
Richard B, watercolor, 10×7.5” Zorn Limited Palette

When I saw the reference photo of fantastic artist Richard Banks in a Sktchy watercolor class, I wasn’t immediately inspired but decided to give it a try anyway. Maybe because I had nothing invested in the outcome, just in the learning process, I ended up liking the painting for what it is.

Sketch #2 (Left) and Sketch #1 (Right)

My first attempt at drawing him was pretty far off so I didn’t try to correct it, I just started over. I was satisfied with the second attempt above.

Zorn Palette + Thalo Blue Green Shade for background

Even though his photo was mostly cool colors, I decided to try to use the Zorn Palette and see if I could make it work. The pigments I used were WN Ivory Black, Utrecht Cadmium Red Light, Holbein Yellow Ochre.

I did cheat slightly and did a preliminary very light wash of Winsor Blue/Green Shade over the whole sheet of paper. Typically with the Zorn palette, the black is used as a blue but this Ivory Black seemed way too warm for it to work.

Reference photo
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Art

Mx. Moon, Imaginary Society Lady

Mx. Moon from Sktchy, graphite on paper, 10×8″

Mx. Moon’s photo on Sktchy (here) led me to imagine I was drawing a distinguished, fine society lady from the 1800s or would it be 1900s? Or 1940s? I don’t know what era, but the photo transported me to another time.

I originally was referring to her as Ms. Moon but then noticed on Sktchy their pronouns were they/them so I had to look up the appropriate honorific and it’s Mx. I learned something new. (On Sktchy they go by simply “Moon”). I hope they don’t mind that I’m referring to them as a society “lady.”

This wasn’t too hard to draw because for once the reference photo wasn’t a distorted selfie, although the angle of her head with the camera far below her face, looking up made it an interesting challenge.

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Art Drawing Faces Portrait

Stella! Back to Sketching Sktchy People

Stella from Sktchy, 8x6” colored pencils
Stella from Sktchy, 8×6” colored pencils

This was the last portrait sketch I did before beginning on some intensive head drawing study. More about that coming up on my next posts, but wanted to get this one from over a month ago posted first. You can see the reference photo by clicking on my sketch on Sktchy here.

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Sketchbook Pages

Sktchy Guys

More sketches inspired by the interesting characters who post their photos for artists to draw on the Sktchy app. Many of them are artists too. All done on Procreate on the iPad.

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Art Faces People Portrait

A Family Tree of Noses and More Noses

More practice drawing features. Above my family tree of noses with various relatives. Do you see anything in common? Below random famous and not famous noses.