Monday, July 26, 2010

Last Sunday's Watercolor Portrait Workshop

Well, here she is again. By the way, I found this comely lass about a year ago on Flickr.com. Before I painted this demonstration for my workshop students, I decided on using the colors burnt sienna, yellow ochre, Opera (made by Windsor Newton), permanent rose, ultramarine blue, phthalo blue, and just a smidgin of a bright yellow. I stressed to my students that one can pick a variety of colors for the face and hair just so long as one uses them in an harmonious manner. The last thing I did before the workshop concluded was to do a wet-on-wet ochre, yellow background which served to bring out the outside border of her hair quite nicely. On the very outside edges of the hair and while the wet-on-wet was still somewhat moist, I pulled of some paint with a dry brush to enhace the slight value difference between the hair edge and background value. I have also included a few shots of my workshop students working on their portraits.

4 comments:

Autumn Leaves said...

Looks like it might have been a bit hard on the back! I am a tad jealous over that man's white and black enamel palette pan! I am going to have to keep my eyes open for some of those!!

Unknown said...

I love that all your students are painting standing up!
I am a die hard that says opera isn't fugitive. I painted a big swatch, covered half of it and stuck it in the western facing window for two months and I could not see a difference.... I am in Oregon but the sun comes out in the summer and I swear the color didn't noticeably change.

David Lobenberg said...

Autumn, yeah, those enamel pans make great watercolor palettes for your color mixes.

David Lobenberg said...

Good to hear about your experience with Opera, Carrie. I say either get your butt off the chair while painting or work at an h2o easel at about a 30 to 60 degree tilt or sit high on an art chair and paint down on a flat surface.