Completed Works

Self Portrait time

We used photo shop to turn this:

into this:

Now comes the fun part. Drawing the contours of this picture onto a canvas. I chose a 16" x 20" canvas for this project. We started by taking a piece of paper and measuring our eye marking the measurement onto the piece of paper like a ruler. Then we measured the overall picture to see first how many "eyes" across it was then trying to find a new measurement on our canvas using our paper ruler that would correspond to the same number of "eye" measurements. My canvas "eye" measurement turned out to be roughly twice the size of my picture "eye" measurement. Once we got that determined we then decided where out starting point would be. For me, it was the eye on the left. I measured roughly where it was in the picture then put it on my canvas. From there its just a matter of drawing the contours on our canvas with charcoal. This process was a little different for me. We aren't drawing the picture but the contours of the colors. When we are done it will look like a paint by number of sorts. This is what I have after much frustration.

I am not a person that likes to draw. I find it tedious and slow. My firs art professor in college loved my drawing style and really encouraged me in it. My drawing professor loved watching my style develop and knew I hated drawing. She was incredibly encouraging as well. I still don't like drawing but I try really hard to get it perfect. After many many hours and so much frustration I finally got the contours drawn onto the canvas correctly. And I didn't get a picture of it before I started painting. Oops. I snapped one before I got too far into it. 

Here a some pictures of the progress. Once it was drawn it was pretty much just a matter of filling in the areas by color. It was paint by numbers! I did find a few drawing mistakes that I had to correct but nothing too bad. The biggest issue was mixing the colors. That was fun and I had to refer to my color wheel more than once.

I went back a few times to correct some colors that I didn't quite like. But over all I'm really happy with it. I submitted it to the student art show and I won a Talentship for it! Here is my finished and now award wining self portrait!

Working with acrylics is definitely different than working with oils. They dry fast so you can create sharper edges but there also isn't too much of a chance to blend if that is what you wanted to do. I know you can add things to the acrylics to make that happen. I may pursue that later in my art career. Right now I'll just stick to assignments.

Here We Go...My First Oil Painting

I have never painted a realistic anything before in my life. I've only taken one actual drawing class. I prefer things that I can get my hands into like sculpture. I create things. I don't draw or paint things. That being said, oil painting hasn't been as intimidating as people have made it out to be. Its just the beginning though! That may change though.

First, you need to set up your space. You easel should be set in such a way that you can see your subject without much twisting back and forth. The canvas should be raised to eye level. Your palette should be set in front of you so that you can get your paints on your brush then right to your canvas, again without much movement. Ideally, you should be able to see your canvas, your subject and your palette all in one view.

Now we can paint! Ok, not really. The canvas needs to be primed with gesso before you start painting. Why? If you don't, the oil paints will soak into the canvas. We're painting. Not dying canvas. So prime that canvas with an acrylic gesso. Fun fact: you can use oil paints over acrylic but not acrylic over oils. I didn't know that!

Once the gesso is dry, we toned our canvas with burnt sienna. We thinned the paint out with mineral spirits and painted very loosely and haphazardly so it wasn't uniform or neat. It didn't make sense at first but it did later. It looked like this once we were done.

After the canvas was primed, we "sketched" out the very basic layout of the painting paying attention to composition. One easy way to think about the composition is to remember that people like odd numbers of things like 1 apple, 3 books, etc. Also, when laying out the design on your canvas, divide the canvas either literally or in your mind into thirds both across the length and height.Where the lines cross is a good place for a focal point. Having a focal point in the dead center of the canvas isn't usually very pleasing to the eye.

Its  easy at this point to "erase" lines by wetting your brush with mineral spirits and painting out your lines. It isn't important to make everything perfect or detailed at this point because you will be making lots of changes. As you can see, the shapes are just very basic. Once everything is in place and you (or your instructor) is happy with the layout, you can start "drawing" in the actual shapes making sure the angles are accurate. An easy way to insure the angles are accurate is to use sighting. Sighting is measuring things in relationship to other things. Sighting it easy to do but hard to explain. I would highly recommend looking it up if you haven't used sighting in your work. 

Here is my painting after I have drawn in my subject.

After you are happy with the basic drawing, it is time to start blocking in the basic colors of your painting. 

After the basic colors are in place, then it is time to start painting the actual objects. The general rule in oil painting it darker colors first with thin coats then go to the lighter colors with thicker coats. It is also important to maintain a correct position in regards to your subject and color palette. You should be able to see your subject and canvas without much movement as well as make sure your paint palette is within easy reach.

Here I started adding detail to the books painting the entire book first with the darkest color of the book then working towards the brighter areas adding highlights. Never just add white to a color for a highlight. Always add a touch of the color on the opposite end of the color wheel to tone down the highlight color. White in itself doesn't brighten but actually dulls the color. It sounds weird, I know, but it is true!

I have changed the background here and added a different painting. When adding in a work by someone else, make it very impressionistic! I didn't think about that but if you make it too perfect then it becomes plagiarism and nobody wants that!When adding a highlight to something like the apple, add just a little of the highlight color then remove it ever so gently while brushing it out with a dry brush. Its tricky and quite frankly it annoys me but the end result it worth it.

I need to work on a few more things still but its coming along!

Here is my painting submitted for the first grading. Oops, I forgot the shadows on the table!

I added the shadows and worked on a few other things like my little native american guy in the lower left corner. I think I'm done with this painting. Maybe someday I'll go back and work on the bird's nest that I am really not happy with but right now I am done. Its been a learning process and I have learned a lot. Like maybe this style of painting isn't for me. Or maybe it is, I just need a subject I would be interested in painting. I'm glad I did it though. Now on to the next project!