Head and Shoulder portrait with a little bit of body.
My aim is too create a sad, thoughtful painting that shows my model in thought with a saddness behind his eyes. This hopefully would allow the viewer to explore there sad thoughts.
I want to explore some pallette options and some view points. My first thought is to go with a muted brown pallette
I drew my model in a close up setting although he was laying on a sofa. I chose to crop out the main shape allow us to only see the body, arms and face. he is looking towards the distance, high above where we the viewer is standing.
My sketch is linear with the hint of shadow, I also have not included the visible stuff in the background. I will create a digital image to show that.
The painting – 50 x 39.5 cm
First I painted a yellow outline of the main shapes.
I filled in the skin (face, neck and arms) with a buff titanium, burnt sienna max and added ultramarine and black to the mix to fill the hair areas.
I used buff titanium and burnt umber to fill in the areas of the sofa. Portrait pink and white for the cushion and began adding detail using brown mixes. Coeruleum blue hue and warm grey for the vest.
I created a pallette of buff titanium, yellow ochre, primary red, ultramarine blue, burnt sienna and mars black using mixes of these colours, I begin to build up shadow, midtone and highlights on the skin. I was working with an image at this point so spent some time with the body with the help of slow drying medium and slow-dry fluid retarder.
I also began to create a background using an edited version of this image for reference – the blurred background is to help aid the view to the direction of the model and his gaze.
I used black, burnt umber and buff titanium to add definition to the hair, paying close attention to how it falls onto my models arms and chest and well as how it ‘bulges’ together between the pillow.
Eye details using titanium white, burnt sienna, black, and then added another layer of detail to the hair and sofa cushion.
Final Thoughts
The face is slightly obscured, I feel with more practice I will be able to figure out better likeness. Overall, I feel the image is giving off the moody mood I was looking for, the browns help keep the mood dark and his thoughtful look into the upper distance allows the mood the real feel sodden and sad.
B-log 