Tuesday, February 02, 2010

"Linda"


Linda, a fellow artist friend, posed for us because the model did not show up. Thank you Linda. You gave up your paint time so that we would not have to and, you gave us a very interesting yet natural pose from all angles.
I love painting during open studio and seeing how each artist approaches the problem of painting a figure in their own way. The results are all varied. I started by trying to find the lightest value in the shadow under her chin and the darkest value in the lit part of her face. Those became my two mother piles. I wasn't concerned with the rest of the issues on my list such as edges, brush stroke, proportions, getting a likeness etc because I really want to accurately find the correct values. I think if the value is off it won't matter if I get the other things correct.
This is a 9"x12" oil on linen study

3 comments:

Janelle Goodwin said...

I really like this poignant portrait. It has a loose, fresh quality. By the way, Happy Birthday to You!

susan hong-sammons said...

Hello Janelle, Great to hear from you and thank you for your encouraging comment. I lost all my blog links but at least now I can put you back.

Diane Hoeptner said...

Your focus on values first worked! This portrait shows wonderfully subtle value shifts, nice!