Thursday, April 21, 2011

"do i still have my wallet?": continuing progress

in this step i finished out the left window by applying dark splotches of ivory black, ultramarine blue, alizarin crimson permanent, mineral violet , and quinacridone gold with a 3/4" flat wash brush (this seemed like a better brush to me to facilitate the straight lines of the architectural details and it also has less water to dilute the paint when i finished the stroke and lifted the brush). i was careful to make sure that the lost edges near the bottom of his sweater front were maintained as i blended the background with the shadow on the bottom of the sweater with an ultramarine blue/raw umber combination. the window molding was painted with the same brush with a combination of teal blue and quinacridone gold. i applied the shadow under the molding with the same combo as the sweater bottom. the trousers were painted with ultramarine blue and burnt sienna as they make a nice generic gray that can be pushed from cool to warm depending on the ratios of each.  for this i switched back to a #8 round. the shoes are ivory black and mineral violet and i made sure to put in the cast shadow at the same time with the shadow colors described above.

at this point i turned my attention to the seated fellow's face. as usual for me i started with the underplane of the nose with a combo of ultramarine blue and burnt umber and drew it up and over the rest of the nose using a clean, damp brush being careful to preserve the highlight over the nostril (sort of....almost...ok, not so much...i will probably have to scape it in later.). i switched to a #2 round for this to get a modicum of control over these important splotches of paint. the eye socket was done with the same colors and per the lessons i learned in doing the rembrandt portraits i started blending the face with the dark window background right away using the same colors as the left window. i carried the left (our right) socket wash down lateral to the nose and then out laterally under the zygoma and feathered the edges with a damp brush. the upper lip was done with burnt umber and alizarin crimson with a bit of it drawn out on the lower lip to give it just a blush of color. the shadow under the lower lip was started with ultramarine blue and blended into the burnt umber for the rest of this shape as it traveled laterally over the jaw line and neck. i substituted the burnt umber for the burnt sienna on the forehead wash. the hair was painted with ivory black and cerulean blue. it is important to lose some of the edge of the hair with the face in order to prevent it from looking wig-like and i intend to do this at the temple where the hair is usually thinnest (at least it is on this gentleman).

in this step i added the shadow to the trousers of the walking figure and finished the hair on the seated guy, added the background behind his head to get some tie-in, and fixed the shadow on the forehead of walking-man (w-m) so it wasn't so abrupt and more closely approximated the reference photo. i put a blush of flesh color on the w-m's hand reaching into his back pocket and straightened out some details with his jacket in the same vicinity.  by now i had decided that slavishly copying the color of the w-m's jacket was not what this painting needed and i wish i hadn't put that wash of cobalt blue over the shoulder and arm. i think it wound be much better if it were a lighter value and will think on this overnight.  i may have to lift out the shoulder area but i don't think that will be a major problem. last but not least, i noticed that i had run over the edge of the window molding at the back of seated guy's (sg) with the dark background color. i will have to lift this out before applying the paint for the molding. since i used mineral violet in at least a small area here that may not work too well.  we'll see. that's it for today. spot y'all later.

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