Tweaked

Once a painting is done, tweaking can be problematic. However, after letting a few days go by, I felt the need to work omn it just a scoch more (see my previous post to view the before-tweaking portrait). Now she has a slightly slimmed down and more anatomically correct jaw line,

and ditto for the tip of her nose. Whatcha think? Was the tweaking needed??

New watercolor portrait

One of my past students at Sacramento City College.

My Final

Yesterday, I posted my step-by-step watercolor process of this gentleman up to an almost completed portrait. Here is my finish as of today.

Almost done

Hard core plein air artists!

Loose as a goose

Or should I have headlined this "Loosey Goosey?" Anyway, the point is that as I was looking at the photo reference, I quickly brushed in colors, shapes, and contours to help capture a likeness. The result is a quick, gestural (loosey goosey) watercolor. I plan on doing some slower refinement painting to bring it to completion. I will explore this approach more, because I think it can lead to an interesting portraiture style. We shall see. I'd love to hear what you think of this approach. Have you tried gestural painting like this?

Is it kosher to draw from a photograph??

These were all drawn from photographic references. Some with pencil, some with ink, and some with paint. Some on paper and some on canvas. So is it kosher to draw and paint from photographs? Of course it is. Don't forget that there are NO RULES in the world of creativity. I will say this, however - there is a certain excitement level with drawing from real life. The challenge of translating the three dimensional world onto a two dimensional surface has a greater level of difficulty. Bottom line though is that one way is no more valid than the other. They are just different experiences.