finally, something from oregon

i actually had the studio set up a few days ago, but i got busy right away with a christmas present for my sister pat. i hope she doesn't follow this blog as then the cat will be out of the bag. i'm pretty sure she doesn't. follow along. she has a beloved older springer named keeley(sp?). keeley is epileptic so they rarely leave her alone for any length of time. i had a photo of her (keeley) and pat so i decided to paint a portrait of the two of them. i intentionally made killy larger than in the photo and pulled pat into the background a bit. i won't go over every detail of how things progressed but i will post each step as i finished it and make some comments as deemed appropriate.

i started with a piece of 16"X20" 140# cold press paper (fabriano artistico) and drew the sujects with a modified contour drawing.

i followed the same sequence i usually do with faces:
 nose, right eye, left eye, hair lateral to the eyes, cheeks,
mouth. the same colors were used in almost every instance (cadmium red light, cadmium yellow pale, and cerulean blue.) the only exceptions were the hair area which were burnt umber and ultramarine blue.

i painted killy with varying colors from pure burnt umber, pure burnt sienna, and pure ultramarine blue to mixtures of any two of them combined slightly on the palette but mostly on the paper.

i used a #10 round brush throughout this painting.

i'm not sure what i am going to do with the background at this point. you an see that i have started to experiment just to the right of killy's head with a light, loose wash of cobalt blue and a little burnt sienna. i think this sort of thing might work with a shape that descends from right to left ending just below pat's *left* ear and ending on the right side of the painting somewhere between her chin and shoulder, but in a light value. this would be more or less the opposite of the head orientation. we'll see.

more tomorrow.