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The Artist working on the portrait of John Paul Stevens, Supreme Court Justice, Collection 7th Circuit Court of Appeals |
Because of my commission work, I have not had the opportunity to offer workshops. Hopefully in the future I will, but I can share some of my decades long learning.
First, a bit of background about me:
I started painting when I was seven or eight years old and continued on through my teenage years. But, I lost about 20 years of serious painting which set back my career…why… because my first husband was a jerk….I mistakenly put his career before mine. Big mistake!
I taught myself to paint thru hard work, determination and studying the old masters, Velazquez, Rembrandt, Franz Hals, Gilbert Stuart and of course John Singer Sargent!
You can “study with” so many Teachers, but it always comes down to YOU! Whether you have the passion and the courage and the discipline to create sincere and real art. I am very proud that I am self-taught. I have my own true original style.
Now, here are some of my words of guidance for portrait painting, many of which also be applied to still life painting. (I will be adding more notes as time allows).
The thicker, you paint the more your color will flow which helps in blending the edges.
Be patient with yourself. It’s very hard work to paint realistically. When your eye and your mind get tired or lose freshness, just put the canvas away until you have a fresh eye and your enthusiasm and passions to start again.
You can learn more from yourself than you can from anyone else, by learning from your mistakes and then not repeating them!
Do not be afraid of colors and mixing colors. All colors come from five basic colors black white red blue and yellow. The old Masters had a very limited color pallet, but they still were able to create rich colors.
Get a color wheel, which is a time proven tool for mixing understanding color relationships.
Start with a middle tone mass, then began to work, the darks in the shadows and the lights in the highlights, saving the lightest light and the darkest dark for the end.
Everything is about the edges and colors next to colors, light and dark cool and warm.
Use a value viewer, a value contrast tool, which is very good for correctly seeing the values of your painting. It is a matted green or red clear plastic slide that helps you see the correct value relationships. I like the green transparent value viewer. Art stores like Blick or Jerrys Artarama usually sell them.
I’ve always found it helpful to place my subject very close to my canvas and to look back-and-forth and back-and-forth, using a plum line or imaginary plum line in your mind. This will help you see accurately the positions of the features, angles and the measurements.
Remember the only thing that’s holding you back is you!
