Little Girls cont

So I worked a long time going back and forth on how to approach this but i decided just to jump in and i will learn how to draw separately.

This is what i got and posted to facebook:

girls October 7

Which i was pretty happy with but the next day I looked at it and knew Sofia was all wrong, so after much measuring and comparing I started her whole head over. It was in the wrong place and everything , also maddie's arm. I put in the correct placement for for them but i had to let it dry so in the meantime i worked on the background. once those parts are dry I will fix it up.

Girls October 8

Oil Portrait

Oil portrait-
Im trying to do something different. I was inspired to try to do a painting of my nieces. One thing lead to another and I ended up wanting to create something between a Renoir and a Sargent. Like these:

This is what I have so far:

Before I begin working on the faces i wanted to do a study or two so I could make most of my mistakes ahead of time. I started with maddie.

 

 This is a tracing of the differences between the photo and the painting. Examining them both i can see that Ive gotten a lot better at the individual parts but it is their relation to each other I have to work on. The bottom part of the face lines up pretty well with the overall shape of the head. The shape of the eyes themselves is not too bad either but the are in the wrong place. I will have to figure out how to improve that. It may even have something to do with the height of the painting on the easel. I want to be able to block things in with a bigger brush like your suppose to and not count on little tiny marks with little tiny brushes like Im used to.

PS: I am happy with the colors for the most part which were :
Burnt umber
Burnt sienna
Cad red light
Yellow ochre
touches of raw sienna and raw umber

Granny at the Circus cont...

Ok, so Ive been working pretty regularly for a couple of days cause I dont have to work and Sarah is off school and it is too damn hot to go anywhere.

So this is yesterday's:

I went back in with the tempera on several areas. I did a few local color glazes. The biggest problem I am Having is the stupid brush. I once again forgot to clean my Winsor Newton Series 7 and even though I got all the paint out, it will never be the same. It's totally splayed and I can't make a good point with it. Today I tried using the tempera brush for part of the time (Winsor Newton University from Amazon) it synthetic so its a little springier and not so soft. Its been fine for what I did today but its not a very good blender. I will have to try the blick sable, they are alot cheaper.

Here is what I did all day today:

I mostly worked on the ringmaster and the showgirl's clothes. I started to do a little in the back. I'm afraid the floor is a little too dark and I'm not sure how to lighten it. If I want it to be more subtle I think I can go over it with white and then a color and bring the whole thing up. I guess I will give it a try.

Granny at the circus continued

I knew I was not happy with this painting but I couldn't exactly figure out what it was. It was a few things, actually. But since this is a personal piece that nobody really cares about except me, I figured I would go ahead and experiment with it.
For one thing the composition was off. There was way too much dead space on the left hand side. I added in a few more people which gives it more of the atmosphere of the actual place and balances the composition.
I also used DAZ to redo the girl serving drinks in the back. Her pose was very awkward.
I also tried something with the stockings of the showgirl. I printed the net stockings on acetate and laid it on top of the painting, It worked in parts, but overall it was too messy and made some big blobs of dark so I ended up going back in with the sharpie oil paint pen and making a dot pattern.
I have also discovered that gelplen goes on pretty well over the oil and tempera. I don't know how well it will hold when I paint over it though. I'm thinking if i use a layer of oil to seal it up it might be ok. We shall see.
And lastly I want to keep track of how I do the skin tones. I like the way the Gerbil Boy turned out but I dont remember exactly the technique I used so i will try to make note of it here if I figure out a good way.
So here is how it is now, we shall see how it goes:

Granny at the circus

Its been quite awhile since I posted here. This is for myself more than anyone else, though. I realize I keep having the same problems over and over so I am going to keep better notes of my progress and obstacles.

I started a new painting recently, inspired by these pictures we took at circus vargas.

 The ringmaster's expression was just too good.

I decided that i wanted to use the mischt technique that I have been experimenting with. Well not really "the technique" but just the idea of using egg tempera and oil together.


So this is how I started:

Its 16 X 20 on a panel that I had previously prepared with rabbit skin glue and gesso, so I thought I'd try it out. I thought I would try having the foreground in warm tones and the background more gray. (July 15, 2017)

This is the next day. Dark floor, more highlights

I thought I would experiment with putting texture in the rug. (July 31)

As I started putting in more details, I realized it was all too dark.In oreder for the tempera to have an affect it has to be almost entirely covering the area with just the dark details showing through. (August 7)

I put a lot more white tempera in the background and tried out 2 different kinds of white pens along with colored pencils. I always find myself wanting to make straight lines which i cannot do with paint. The watercolor pencils work pretty well so far, but the are not very strong. I got an oil base sharpie paint pen and a regular old gel pen from Michaels and tried those. The Sharpie is bold but even though it is an extra fine tip, it is pretty thick. The gel pen is working pretty well  and is more the consistency I was looking for. I put local color glazes on some of the areas and painted the Circus sign pretty alla prima. That brings us up to date. (August 13)