I am back!

It's been a long time and much has happened to keep me away from painting and teaching for the last year. Some has been happy time traveling to see family and a new granddaughter some of it not when both my parents died this past winter.

I have been busy showing my work locally with Art in Public Places Lexington http://www.southcarolinaartists.com/

We just hung a big show in the Lexington County Building on S. Lake Dr. This morning. It is a wonderful show and covers three floors right now. If you get a chance go take a look!

Almost done

I was able to bring Rachel's hairline down. I lifted a bit of color from the top of her head and blended in some 10% French Gray.

I also narrowed her face and neck by widening the shadow of her hair on the left.

She also got more hair on the right side of her forehead. This looks more like Rachel now!

As you can see I have deepened all the tones on her face. I did it by walking up the skin value scale to level 5 using mostly the pinks along with burnt umber and terra cotta.

These were some pretty major changes from where she was a few days ago. By keeping my strokes light I was easily able to add more color where I needed it. The key to portraits with CP is a light light touch!

Finished at least for now.

I have deepened all the shadow areas with Henna, Terra Cotta and Dark brown. They were then blended with either Clay rose or rosy beige depending on the value level of the area. .

I widened the background on the right and added more hair to improve the crop.

The last step is to go over her entire face and neck with cream, light peach or beige depending on the value of the area to blend and smooth the skin.

That's it!

Day four.

I didn't do much today but I did decide to check my work. Using a piece of Mylar film I traced my reference photo. Whew! I should have done it sooner! I have a lot of work to do.

I have laid my Mylar line drawing over my painting. While I have her features pretty accurate. I sure do need to lower her hair line and make her face and neck a bit narrower. I also need to make that area under her chin a bit more narrow. These are easy fixes. Had they needed to have been made wider it would have be a lot harder. I will post my progress here as I get time maybe later this week.

Day Three Step 1

There are eight steps in this session. You will have to click "older posts" to see them all.

I started the work on Rachel today by getting the mouth closer to the values I saw in my reference photo. I added some 70% French Gray to her teeth and blended that with 10% French Gray and Cream.

I added some more Carmine to her lips and also some Henna. I blended that with Rosy Beige and Clay Rose in the darker areas of her lips. Henna was added to the gum line in darker areas.

90% French Gray went on her back teeth to help deepen and turn her mouth.

Day Three Step 2

The area under Rachel's chin needed to be darkened a bit.

I have added Yellow Ochre and Terra Cotta under her neck and then blended it with Pink.

Day Three Step 3

I have added pink to her nostrils and darkened the on on the left with black. It is darker on that side because of the way the light hits her face.

I think her eyes are too blue so I have brightened them turned them more Hazel with Goldenrod over the blue. Because CP is transparent it is easy to change the color a bit by mixing yellow into the blue to make her eyes a bit greener.

I also deepened the blue around the edge of her iris with Indigo Blue