My first portrait. I had no clue where to even start. In class, Chui said sketch with burnt umber thinned with turpentine to make the overall oval-ish shape of the head (including the top of the skull/hair), and then the eyes are just higher than midway of the overall oval. Then the nose, midway between the eyes and the chin. Relate the ears to the level of the eyes. I learned that the top lip is darker than the bottom lip because of the shadows, and that alizarin crimson with white and orange is a good lip color. Chui put the highlights in her hair, at the top of her head, a very light, cold, bluish-reddish brown. It's fun to get to know the models a bit; at the breaks this model said that sitting for us was cutting into her social life, since there was this guy that wanted to ask her out on a date and it always was on portrait night. We agreed that it was good to be mysterious. For all of these models, my portraits do not identify them, they look like cousins of the sitters.
Next there was this young blond gal, weird hostile expression, unrelaxed posture. That's the way I painted her, not the way she actually looked. And I gave her a five o'clock shadow by accident. Blue in the skin tone is way too cold. Mauve, ocher and browns are better shadow colors.
In the next session, I tried to fix things somewhat. I learned that if you make things light, it brings things forward, like that great chickeny sinew she has coming out of her neck. Accident. Onward.
It's important to relate the level of the chin to the level of the shoulder. Which I did not do in this next one, mine's the one in the foreground. So she looks like she's a military recruit. Chui's is the one on the far right, and in it the model is relaxed, lissome, lovely.
This next guy was a very nice person, the neighbor of someone. Chui was away, and so we just all got together anyway. I had just learned that my dog was sick, and he was so nice about it to me. Sitting up close to the portrait, I kept thinking my colors were bright enough, but then I'd step back and everything was chalky. I was sitting next to Denise, who is a very good portraitist, and she said "Just go for it!" color wise, and so I put cadmium red on the ears and in the corners of the eyes the way I saw it; it was sort of freeing. This however looks suspiciously like my brother. I don't know why that happens, but it does. One starts to paint self and relatives by accident.
And this one is Denise's, millions of times better.
Anna, was a lot of fun to paint. She was a florist at a grocery store, and one of my classmates was shopping, saw her, and outright asked her to sit for our portrait group. She said, "Sure! Sounds like fun!" She wore a fun dress. She was sweet, after class went around and took photos of each of the portraits. This is one of the first sessions with her.
Then this, I liked her expression back then. I shouldn't have touched it. Chui taught me that the color of the hand has a lot of violet in it, which was exactly right. I was surprised. He also told me to put a nice shadow under her bottom lip, with some ocher yellow in it. The skin color is cadmium red mixed with white, with a touch of cadmium yellow, a very pure color.
And then I went and ruined her face. I don't even really know where I screwed up. I shortened her face and other things. I now realize that when you like the way things look, leave them alone. She looks sort of mean, now. Better is the enemy of good.
I sat as the model for my class, and learned a lot in doing so. I am not going to post the portraits here, but at the time I was holding my dog (by request from my classmates) and this is a detail of little Sadie painted by Chui. I learned that everyone's expressions vary quite a bit while posing (mine not the dog's), and to try to paint the models to look neutral and attractive. To choose the time when eyes when they are brightest, not to capture a downward mouth scowl or shadows that are too harsh. To try to paint someone at their natural best.
You can see how Sadie's snout and paws are lighter and this brings them forward, the come out of the painting.
This next gal was very self involved, would cancel at the last minute, and then went and cut her hair off midway through, which kind of screwed all of us up. She was very flighty and unapologetic, a ballet teacher of 5 year old kids. She was a pretty girl though, and sat very still, fixed her eyes on one spot and didn't move them; good qualities in a model. This is midway through, her skin is very chalky.
With a little more work but still all sorts of problems
For her, I will sand off the paint and then paint over with acrylic gesso. Then the canvas can be re used.
This model is from Shanghai, an acquaintance of a group member. Chui advised me to divide up the shadowy dark part from the light part of his face. Then he corrected: he made the nose area dark using crimson, as this really was the darkest part of the model's face. I watched in awe. Crimson. I wouldn't have thought to do that.
Then at the next lesson, Chui had me correct and refine the portrait, darken the eyes, reshape the head. Though I feel I like my previous less professional, more wonky version of the portrait, somehow.
This one is of J's mother, it was difficult to put color in place of black and white but I had Chui teaching me. Under the chin is red, blue and gold ocher. I used a flyer from Holt Renfrew with a model who had similar coloring to try to get the tones right.
And a sheep portrait. Does this count? The sheep had a human expression, I thought, though I didn't capture it especially well.
I painted this of my mother reading to me when I was young, heavily coached by Chui. He just knows how to add that milky colored highlight to the hair. He knows everything.
And that is the photo diary of every portrait that I've ever done.
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