"Sabrina at Hanauma Bay, Oahu" (watercolor on paper; 14" x 10")

 

"Sabrina at Hanauma Bay"

The following is what we did in the seventh and eighth weeks of the spring term, 2022 in my "Watercolor Portraits" class (my online Zoom classes with the Art League School in Alexandria, VA).

The last independent project is the full-length portrait and the focus of the last two weeks of the spring term. The following three images are from Laurel Hart's "Putting People in Your Paintings". She has a YouTube channel with full-length videos. Check them out!

"Figure Proportions I"

"Figure Proportions II"

"Shadow Patterns"

I also introduced two books: Christopher Hart's "Figure it Out!: Human Proportions" and "The Complete Book of Poses for Artists" by Ken Goldman and Stephanie Goldman.

There are a number of ways of handling a full-length portrait but, in my opinion, the easiest way is focusing on the light and shadow pattern in the face and body and paint it in either two (light and dark) or three (light, mid-tone, and dark) values. (Refer to the third image from Laurel Hart's book.) If you are capable, you can soften the edges since face, torso, and limbs are round objects of either egg-like or cylindrical forms.

But keeping the light and shadow patterns distinct is more important in rendering the human form in such a small scale than softening edges. My demo painting, "Sabrina in Hanauma Bay, Oahu", is 14" tall and her head is only 1 1/2" tall, whereas the average human head is 9" tall. (Remember that the average person is 7 to 7 1/2 head long; my daughter, who is 5' 2" tall, is  less than that.) The features are tiny, but if you draw the light/shadow pattern right, the subject will emerge miraculously, as you can see in the work in progress below!

"Sabrina in Hanauma Bay in Progress"

I used the three value method for "Sabrina at Hanauma Bay" and "Artist at 28". You can paint anything, not just skin tones, in three values, be that the hair, clothes, or whatever! For the image below from my whimsical figure journal that I keep for pure fun, I used Schmincke's naples yellow reddish (light), rose dore (mid-tone), and perylene violet (dark). You can use whatever colors of your choice that harmonize well with each other; just designate a different color for each value. 

 

 

"Two Women in Black"

I used watercolor pencil shavings and water spritz to create the sand texture in the beach. I also used watercolor pencils the draw in some patterns in the coverup, then painted dark shadow patterns with indigo blue; to restore light patterns, I used white gouache. For these tiny portraits, if you are having trouble getting features right, you may want to consider using either watercolor pencils or colored pencils in appropriate colors.

 

Below is the finished image of "Artist at 28". The painting is based on an old photo that was taken when I was 28 years old. I look like a girl!

 

"Artist at 28"

 

"Mimosa Time" (watercolor on paper; 10" x 8")

 

"Mimosa Time"

 

The following is what we did in the sixth week of the spring term, 2022 in my "Watercolor Portraits" class (my online Zoom classes with the Art League School in Alexandria, VA).

This week we are exploring the portrait with prominent hands. When handled well, the hands can contribute hugely to the success of the portrait, so much so that a great portrait painter is usually someone who can paint hands masterfully. Instead of avoiding a subject with hands, let's embrace the hands and try to get better!

Below is the image of my class demo in progress. Just like anything else, painting hands is all about paying attention to plane changes and value shapes, the latter caused by different amounts of light falling on them. Often the quality of light is subtle, but it is still there. In my case, there was the natural light from the window (right side) and the warm artificial light from the interior (left side). The subject's melon-color shirt also strongly influenced the colors in the hands. I had to play with the warm/cool contrast as well as the light/dark one. 

"Mimosa Time in Progress"

The end game here is modeling the hand (with five fingers!) successfully so that it looks three-dimensional. When I realized that I had lost the light shapes, I reintroduced them with white gouache, and there you go, the hand holding the champagne flute appeared in full glory. 

The beard is no different from anything else. Paint light and darks. Of course, hair has soft texture, so the ability to control the hard/soft edges is paramount in the success of painting a beard and mustache. My husband has a salf-and-pepper beard and I had to make sure the darks were dark enough. The hair on the left side, near the orange drink, reflected the warm color and it was important that I didn't use cool darks. Yes, values are the most important things, but color temperature has to be sometimes considered as well.

 

When I was satisfied with the light/dark pattern of the beard and mustache, I went over to add the "salt" part with white gouache using my "lifting"brush. I was mindful not to overdo these finishing touches. Remember that it's not the details, but the overall light and dark pattern and soft texture, that gives the impressions of the facial hair or any hair.

 

"Victorian Lady in Sepia" (watercolor on paper; 12" x 9")

 

"Victorian Lady in Sepia"

The following is what we did in the second week of the spring term, 2022 in my "Watercolor Portraits" class (my online Zoom classes with the Art League School in Alexandria, VA).

First we talked about the important business of the value scales (grayscales). I actually made them for you to see (If you just watched, please try them; it's not as easy as it looks!), using the sepia mixture of cobalt blue and burnt sienna (Daniel Smith). You can also try a black (I like neutral tint by Daniel Smith).

Then we started the main lesson of the day, which was painting a sepia value study of "Victorian Lady", based on a sepia picture taken between 1890 and 1900. We used only burnt sienna (my favorite is Daniel Smith) and cobalt blue. In the value scales, the value 10 is the white of the paper (highlights). The value 2 or 3 is as dark as it gets with the mixture of these two colors. The value 1 is black. The high-key paintings crowd around highlights and mid tones; the low-key paintings (such as tonalist) lack highlights and crowd around mid tones and darks. We won't be using ten values; you can do a convincing portrait with six values. Beginners' paintings often lack highlights and darks and remain in the mid-tone fest!

Sepia Grayscales

I first painted the background with the dark mid-tone variegated wash (slightly bluer and darker along the periphery, giving the subject a brownish halo) on thoroughly wet paper. If your first layer was too light, repeat the process. You have to dry the paper thoroughly before rewetting; otherwise you disturb the first layer. Be as gentle as possible when you are wet-glazing. The variegated background wash is something I do in every single portrait painting; you have to master this technique! 

Then I started painting the subject with the lightest wash on dry paper, covering the entire area of the subject, except the lightest parts (highlights). Don't make this first layer too dark and make it more brown than blue! The value should be the #9 in the grayscale (called tint).

In between layers, dry the paper thoroughly. We are glazing, so paper should be bone dry. At each stage, I mixed a slightly darker batch by adding a little more of each paint; mix more than you think necessary (you don't want to run out of paint in the middle of the wash!). By the fifth layer, I got everything done; for the darkest layer, I used French ultramarine blue rather than cobalt blue as the former is a darker color. The darkest values are found in the hair, dark trim of the brooch, left-side brow and adjoining dark shadow of the nose, pupils, upper lip (left side), canine fossa and a few folds of the blouse.

For the finishing touch, I used the Sakura gelly roll pen 10 to restore the catchlights in the pupils. You can use instead a white gouache. You can also use a white gouache for the white polka dots and highlights in the neck and lace.

The image below is the class demo; the top image is my sample painting, which is warmer than the demo. The color temperature in photography is called white balance. Even the same painting can look different depending on the lighting condition. The day when I took the picture of the sample painting, it may have been an overcast day that caused the general warmness. Today when I took the picture of the demo, it was a bright sunny condition (the blue of the sky causes the cool temperature).

"Victorian Lady in Sepia" Class Demo

"Raven" (watercolor on paper; 12" x 9")

 

"Raven"

 

The following is what we did in the eighth weeks of the winter term, 2022 in my "Watercolor Portraits" class (my online Zoom classes with the Art League School in Alexandria, VA). 

Lots of things were on my mind (in addition to being dead tired), so I may have talked too lengthily. My apologies. All the things I covered, I stand by them. I talked about the importance of accurate measuring and showed you my work-in-progress (a 40" x 40" oil commission painting of the National Cathedral from the north side) to prove that, if you know how to measure with the aid of a proportional divider, you can draw anything.

If your drawing of the subject is wobbly, no matter how hard you work on the project, it will never turn out satisfactory. I once worked on a watercolor portrait commission, which required five drawings and three paintings to satisfy the client and her three teen-age/college age daughters. Why? Watercolor is a relatively unforgiving medium and you can't really correct once you start painting. Please trace if you know your drawing is weak. There is absolutely no dishonor or shame in that! Arches paper is not where you practice drawing; you do that in sketchbooks, if possible, daily.

I also talked about the importance of the variegated background wash that goes down first to set the tone. Wrong color choices and poor executions often lead to poor paintings.

I introduced you to my contemporary watercolor hero, Shirley Trevena and her book, "Artist's Studio: Vibrant Watercolours". (My dead watercolor hero would be John Singer Sargent, LOL.) Her style is not everybody's cup of tea, but her colors and design sense are absolutely divine. My palette is a modified version of hers. She doesn't do portraits per se, but one must get inspirations from all manners of artists, past and present, if you are really serious about your art.

For the hair of "Raven", I used almost exclusively Moonglow and Piemontite genuine (both by Daniel Smith). They both granulate and are effective in achieving that soft Afro look without much ado. Your black subject will, of course, have different colors and require different paints. Always paint the overall lightest color first (in my case, the mixture of French ultramarine blue and burnt sienna), then start carving out dark shapes.

For the skin tones, I started out by toning the highlight shapes (including the whites of the eyes and teeth) with a very pale cobalt turquoise light (Winsor Newton). Then I pondered about the general color palette of the young woman and decided she has a lot of orange and mahogany (reddish brown). I hardly used any burnt sienna.

I do feel strongly about, when painting black subjects, avoiding the earth colors which tend to mud up everything they touch. The only exception may be mixing, let say, an earth color like burnt umber with a transparent color such as Winsor violet, but what does that dark mixture have to do with the human skin tones?

So went in cadmium orange (yes, I have it; I also have cadmium red orange; it beats having to mix them all the time!), cadmium red, and my favorite cool red, Sennelier Helios purple. For darks, I used perylene maroon, perylene violet and ultramarine violet (my favorite is by Schmincke, but it's very expensive!).

The rest is always the same. Make the dental arch and eyes appear rounded by darkening the corners. Don't stain the teeth yellow even if they appear so in the reference; you may have to model each tooth carefully (observation is the key as anywhere else).

The brows are not caterpillars; they have volume and they should arch at the right places. They are not of the same tone or hue as they travel, hugging along the brow ridge.

Be careful with the the nasolabial fold shapes. If you want to ruin the expression of a portrait, this is where you concentrate first, LOL!

Darks should be dark enough. The black skin tones are generally dark in the first place, so you will need more layering to achieve the rich luminousity.