Portrait painting

Friends,

First, our class demo last Thursday didn't get very far.  Painting my friend's face wanted to take a lot more time than was available.   I hope you were inspired by at least some of the presentation and were able to make use of the ground we covered.  For those who were unable to attend, we looked first of all at the idea of design in painting.  Tony van Hasselt's 'Eight Building Blocks of Art' are described in his teachers book as the eight elements of design.  Design can involve structuring the larger blocks of color so that they are harmonious - or not.  We looked at how Monet used design - and how "designed" his paintings are. Monet used strong diagonal lines to project the subjects of his paintings toward the viewer.  Looking at the world, making a snapshot in the mind, can one see the strongest and longest lines and exaggerate their presence.

Here is a painting from a postcard by Tony van Hasselt, one of Edgar Whitney's students and the creator of the "Eight Building Blocks of Art" concept.  It demonstrates how figures can be almost totally defined by their background.  There are even monochrome grey figures at the far right at the left end of the building. A bi-chrome figure just to the left of them, and then a fellow in a hat sitting in the stern of a boat.  On the left, someone is jumping down the stairs. There are three distant figures behind him.

Someone asked about glazing.  We haven't covered that, yet, but here are two series of glazed images.  The first image is un-glazed, the next three images in each series show successive coatings of glazing.  You want to put down a moist layer of paint with the lightest touch possible - no scrubbing! - and with only the water you need to put it down with - don't want to soak the existing paint, just paint over it.

 
 

 

I hope these images convey the idea.  It's a way of having fun with old paintings that had issues.

Buy this book.  From Amazon for $10.  Now, if you haven't gotten it already.  It is just so good ....

Here's the chapter on painting people ..

The other chapters are just as good.  A page or two of this book can get your motor running.

Here's an image of what I've been up to...  It waits for a person to be climbing the stairs and a second person to be looking off into the distance at the mast poking up through the fog.  Maybe a third person with a picnic basket.  The light at the top of each step sort of echoes the light at the top of the water.  This is a 2.5" x 3.5" art card.

 Hope you have fun painting little people near and far.  See ya soon...

Dan