Portrait Class Lesson 2

We will continue to emphasize drawing. This time we will work from a live model. You should concentrate on the head and face not the entire figure. We will also add color in a controlled manner:



Step1: Use tone as well as line. This indicates areas of shadow. Sometimes it is ok to use just line but painting will be easier later if you use some tone and shadings here. The point is also to leave some of the underlying canvas showing through the drawing, either pure white canvas or the toned ground.

Step2: Use big brushes to mass in the larger forms. Use alizarin crimsin plus white for the pinks on the cheeks and nose. Use ultramarine blue and white plus alizarin crimson and white for light highlights on nose and forehead. Use warm colors for highlights (cad red light plus yellow ochre plus white.


Establish color mixes: one pale rose and the other pale olive. The first is cad red light, raw sienna, and white the second is green, yellow ochre, and white for the olive.

Establish a color mix for shadows: Below the chin, green, yellow ochre, cad yellow, and white. Under the nose, raw sienna, burnt sienna, and white. Dark parts of the hair are alizarin and black plus ulta ble and biurnt sienna.

Note: In class this week we would like to get to this stage within one hour and then switch to another pose and try to get to the same stage on another canvas or board. The goal is to practe the sketch and then the large block in. Here is another example:

Portrait Class Begins

Welcome to the portrait class (started up at Maude Kerns 1/14 on Wednesday evening). Looks like we have a full house at 16 people signed up!

Announcement: Everyone is invited to my opening reception at the Springfield Museum.. There will be some portrait examples.

The outline for the class:

• Equipment and Set up


• Basics and Concepts of Painting


• Classical Academic Painting


• Direct (Alla Prima) Painting


• Demonstrations


• Working from live models


• Looking at Good Examples

I talked about two different ways of establishing your preliminary drawing: the Renaissance style and the Modern style. The Renaissance approach uses a moe or less complete drawing with very little white canvas showing. The modern approach is more sketchy leaving a lot of white canvas.

(The Renaissance Style)
Note that using this style the artist spends a significant amount of time developing the Grisaille(F r. "Grizz-eye: grey")I prefer Sienna to traditional grey but either is good. Traditionally it is a monochromatic underpainting (imprimatura) in grey or brown.

(The Modern Approach) This is a more limited (sketchy) drawing done with the brush
Using a #4 bristle filbert If possible.

We started by concentrating on drawing with the brush trying to create subtle, soft edged likeness. The drawing has to leave a lot of white canvas showing. I emphasized that we need to spend at least two weeks drawing and re-drawing until we master this idea. The drawing, when properly exectuted, has half-tones as well as the full range of values from zero to nine.

To get ready for painting you will need brushes and colors:

Use Graham paints
Use a limited palette

1. Ultramarine blue


2. Alizarin Crimson


3. Cadmium Red


4. Cadmium Red light and/or Cadmium Orange


5. Cadmium Yellow Medium


6. Burnt Sienna


7. Thalo Green


8. Yellow Ochre


9. Titanium White


10. Ivory Black

In this class we will learn how to combine the Renaissance and modern portrait painting techniques. The modern approach calls for spped and direct painting. The older Renaissance methods call for careful drawing and slow, indirect painting, often building up the portrait over time, using glazes. Both approaches and/or a combination of the two are taught in many academic settings today.

Preview of modern approach: We build a portrait in four steps:
Step1: the sketchy drawing shown before that positions the head and establishes relative distances for key features (this process is called "mapping").
Step2: indicating the darker areas of the drawing:

Step3: add color: Pay attention to warm and cool colors and keep values in mind when painting in color. Also get masses right first, not a focus on details:

Step4: Add halftones and detail eyes, nose, mouth, hair

Looking at Examples: What was just shown was a very quick, rapid fire demo. In actual practice, taking more time with each step, results are much more refined. How much "finish" to give a portrait depends on the painter's goal. We shall discuss this in future classes. Here is a "finished" portrait of an Italian soccer player completed using this 4-step method:

Starting to paint again

It has been a tough two weeks with final exams, grading for three classes, and getting a show hung. Anyway, now with a two-week break I can finally get some painting in:

Recently sold this figurative work, "The Art Class":



Now working on larger group scenes, some more abstract than others. This one is "Serie di rivoluzione quadro uno":



And another, "L'ultima Cena":



In these recent works, preparations for a show at the Springfield Museum, I seem to be moving even more into abbreviation of form and seeking a connection with unknown narratives. Perhaps the narrativeare really known, its just not yet clear how the innovation in expression will link up with more explicit, more detailed areas of the canvas, if that becomes necessary.

Last Week of Narrative Class

We will have the model again but this will also be a chance to rap up certain concepts and review the fundamentals.

We have talked about a goal of producing large, classically inspired academic narrative paintings while remaining modern and informed about the principle of abstraction.

Narrative Painting unfolds intuitively

Well...its November already and I have to get ready for my DIVA exhibit at the end of this month and, I have just confirmed my exhibit at the Springfield Museum for January. The DIVA show will mostly be landscapes but I hope to include some recent figurtive experiments, perhaps work done while teaching this class, the narrative painting course at Maude Kerns.

This was painted last night:



"Untitled"

News flash: Because of a family emergency, I am forced to sell a much cherished painting as soon as possible. This is my "View of Florence from the Effizi Gallery"
which I need to sell for approximately $8000. If you or anyone you might know is in a position to acquire this work, please have them get in touch. The work was completed in 2001 and, as far as I know, is a totally unique vista of Florence. At least I have never seen anything like it. My wife Angela loves this painting which hangs in our dining room, but not it seems it must find another home.

Narrative painting -- 4 value chiaroscuro continued

Last week in class we used the 4-value chiaroscuro as a technique to improve the overall impact of our painting. On can use the computer and photo editing software to view the artwork in grey scale:

Those like the late Albert Boime, the famed art historian who has recently expounded on the phenomenon of abstract romanticism, have been inclined to appreciate a pure abstraction without significant figurative content. I am not as interested in pure abstraction but rather in gestural marks with the brush that indicate figures and "placeholder forms" that can be elaborated further, into narrative and or realism while maintaining their romantic character:


"The Judgement of Paris"

In this I consider myself closer to the original program of the I Macchiaioli group, namely using the "spot" or "gestured spot" and the element of spontaneity to achieve an esthetic that has life and texture but not to betray the revolution, in particular, depicting unadorned social reality as being the principal focus of visual production.



"Esther Before Azureus"

Nevertheless, history and mysthological (include biblical) narrative provides an opportunity for a kind of playing at forms and romantic color to evoke a feeling of grandeur as well as a certain gravitas, regarding the profound story, the playing out in fantasy and imagination, some deeply mysterious yet beautiful portrayal.





"Tintoretto Study"

Here is an interesting note on Tintoretto.



in color:

The Bozzetto for Painting Narrative Scenes

To plan your narrative paintings try to paint in the value range 5-7 when creating the bozzetto which is usually a much smaller canvas: