I have been invited to paint a portrait of a well known PBS television star during an important luncheon at Sacramento's local PBS broadcasting station. The keynote speaker at the luncheon will be the president of PBS. I will also have on display four other PBS stars to help promote my portraiture business. This is the very first PBS star that I painted last week. About five hours, on a 20 inch by 20 inch stretched canvas. The first photo shows my "start". I am working from a reference photo. The first thing I did was outline the contours of the face with a 1/8 inch wide flat brush. After that, I painted in the basic value shapes. I kept things very rough at this stage as you can see. All I did was build my contour/value shape foundation in one color. In this case, I chose purple. Color is not that important at this stage as it will be totally covered as I move along on the painting process. The next stage shows the face's local skin color painted in along with the background color. I always keep in my mind the ENTIRE painting as a harmonious entity, especially the colors. In all of these steps, I am painted with various sized (small, medium, and large) flat brushes. I used flat brushes to get a sculpted/chisel look. In the next stage, I have most of the colors painted in. I like to be somewhat expressive in my color choices. As long as I can maintain the value structure of the face and keep colors harmonized, I'm in good shape. The final photo shows the lower lip painted in and brings my effort to a conclusion. Note the bits of tourqoise and local skin tones distributed throughout the painting to maintain that color harmony. Again, I gave a rough hewn quality to this painting. This will be the model for the other to follow. As I complete them in the next week or two, I shall post the results. Do you know who this dude is??
I have been invited to paint a portrait of a well known PBS television star during an important luncheon at Sacramento's local PBS broadcasting station. The keynote speaker at the luncheon will be the president of PBS. I will also have on display four other PBS stars to help promote my portraiture business. This is the very first PBS star that I painted last week. About five hours, on a 20 inch by 20 inch stretched canvas. The first photo shows my "start". I am working from a reference photo. The first thing I did was outline the contours of the face with a 1/8 inch wide flat brush. After that, I painted in the basic value shapes. I kept things very rough at this stage as you can see. All I did was build my contour/value shape foundation in one color. In this case, I chose purple. Color is not that important at this stage as it will be totally covered as I move along on the painting process. The next stage shows the face's local skin color painted in along with the background color. I always keep in my mind the ENTIRE painting as a harmonious entity, especially the colors. In all of these steps, I am painted with various sized (small, medium, and large) flat brushes. I used flat brushes to get a sculpted/chisel look. In the next stage, I have most of the colors painted in. I like to be somewhat expressive in my color choices. As long as I can maintain the value structure of the face and keep colors harmonized, I'm in good shape. The final photo shows the lower lip painted in and brings my effort to a conclusion. Note the bits of tourqoise and local skin tones distributed throughout the painting to maintain that color harmony. Again, I gave a rough hewn quality to this painting. This will be the model for the other to follow. As I complete them in the next week or two, I shall post the results. Do you know who this dude is??
