Planes of the Head – Jana Bouc, Artist

Frankie Flathead Finally Painted (Planes of the Head Grisaille Study)

Frankie Flathead Planes of the Head Study, oil on canvas panel, 11x14" — Planes of the Head, Grisaille study, oil on canvas panel, 11×14″

When I bought a “Planes of the Head” life-sized plaster cast two years ago I wanted to learn more about portrait painting. I put it on display in the studio and studied it. I knew I should be drawing and painting from the cast, but hoped learning would happen by osmosis since it didn’t really inspire me as a painting subject.

Then I got curious about grisaille techniques after seeing beautiful paintings that began with that approach. I watched the excellent video “How to Paint: The Grisaille Method” by Jon deMartin (in which he paints from a cast of Julius Caeser) and decided to try grisaille using homely Frankie Flathead, my Planes of the Head cast, as my model. See bottom of post for a clip of the deMartin video.

Planes of the Head Open Grisaille — Open Grisaille in which Frankie resembles a demented old perv

I was going to display all my steps along the way, but my photos weren’t good enough. Above is the first stage, the “open” grisaille, which means it’s painted thinly, using only transparent washes of grey (or in this case, burnt umber) and wiping paint off to achieve the lighter values. At the top of the post is the “closed” grisaille, made by mixing and applying a range of values opaquely, using white and the same burnt umber on top of the original “open” grisaille.

One of the most powerful things I discovered in the video is the way light changes across planes.

Gray scale and strip painted 50% gray — 9-step Value Scale (white to black) on left and strip painted Value 4 Gray on right (screenshot from video)

Same Value 5 gray strip curved to show the range of values as it turns from light — Same Value as image to the left but the Value 4 Gray strip is curved to show the range of values as it turns away from light (screenshot from video)

When bent so planes are at different angles to the light, the gray strip on the right seems to have all the values in the 9-step value strip on the left. Isn’t this a powerful demonstration of the effects of light and shadow?

My first attempt at grisaille was interesting. I made many mistakes and got lots of good practice.

My finished painting isn’t great, but doing the study helped prepare me for the next lesson I gave myself (and that I enjoyed more and will post soon): starting with a grisaille to set the value structure in a still life and then adding the color in the same values.

Below is a clip from the video. I was very curious about how grisaille works so it was worth the $35 to download the three-hour program, also available here to watch online and DVD.

(Disclaimer: I have no connection to or receive no benefit from writing about these products)

Last Day of EDiM: “Fresh” Hydrangeas and L.L. Bean “Flashlight” Hat

Baby Hydrangea for "Something Fresh" EDM #112, ink & Watercolor, 6x4.5" — Baby Hydrangea for EDM #112: Fresh, ink & Watercolor, 6"x4.5"

I’d never been able to sketch this hydrangea plant before because once the teensy little buds open they shed piles of equally teensy little petals and make a big mess. But this one was so fresh I was able to cut and draw it without the mess. (Although it did end up making a mess anyway when my cat ate one of the leaves and then delivered it later to the rug.)

EDM #120 Flashlight (L.L. Bean Pathfinder Flashlight Hat), ink & watercolor — EDM #120 Flashlight (Hat), ink & watercolor

The cue was to draw a flashlight. My favorite flashlight is my wonderful L.L. Bean Pathfinder Cap. It has two LED lights in the brim. One points straight down and is perfect for lighting your sketchbook when painting when it’s dark, and the other points ahead to light your path. You just squeeze a spot on the brim and it toggles between down, ahead or both. When painting in a dark pub it perfectly lit my sketchbook page but nobody could tell where the light was coming from. Someone came over to try to figure it out because it just looked like my page was illuminated.

The hat is sitting on a plaster “Planes of the Head” cast, a tool for learning how to really see and draw heads (good article about this here).

Although I wasn’t a faithful follower of “Sketch Every Day in May,” it reinforced how much I enjoy drawing. Some of the cues sounded boring but I discovered that no matter how dull a subject may seem, drawing it rarely is.