Evolution of a Portrait -- Part 5

Finishing up!

Not much left to do but all the details take a long time!  Glazing in the shadows with burnt umber, correcting any of the details in the features, re-stating highlights where needed etc.

I also added another layer to the background.  When all this dried, I finished the hair and cleaned up the sweater where the background color overlapped a bit.  Here is the finished product -- hope you like it:

 

Adam Verret

Private Collection

Evolution of a Portrait -- Part 4

Beginning the flesh tones!

After the "rash" stage has dried I mix a flesh tone -- usually yellow ocher, vermilion and white with a touch of cerulean.  This I apply in a thin wash over the underpainting.  I then mix various shadow and "half" tones which I apply and blend with the flesh tone.  I will then go in and paint the eyes, mouth and other details.  You'll notice that the background color has changed to a deeper blue-grey.  This often happens in relation to the flesh colors.

Next time finishing up!

Evolution of a Portrait -- Part 3

Completing the underpainting.

Here is the completed underpainting with color added to the hair.  I also blocked in the sweater with black.  Whenever I use a solid black, I always try to add some raw umber to it.  This helps with drying -- ivory black on its own can take weeks to dry!

Before I start with flesh tones, I paint in pure vermilion and blue-grey areas.  This is what I affectionately call my "rash" phase.  The intention is for these color patches to "glow" through the upper flesh tone layers and give a blush to the painting.

 

Next time -- beginning the flesh!

Evolution of a Portrait -- Part 2

The Underpainting

After the sketching in, comes the first underpainting.  I work in a modified Venetian technique which divides the work of a painting into value first, then color.  This, I find to be a very efficient way to produce a painting.  The Venetians (Titian, etc.) tended to use black and white for their underpaintings -- I use raw umber and white.   It produces a great warm grey-brown and umbers dry very fast -- usually overnight! 

I like to cover the canvas in the first go even if I don't know what the final color of the background will be.  I've blocked in the main light and darks, and suggested the direction of how the hair will be.  The sweater is black so I just used a solid block of raw umber to darken that area.  The background is a light dove grey.

Tomorrow -- Finishing the Underpainting!

Evolution of a Portrait -- Part 1

This is the beginning of a portrait of Adam.  This will be an oil on canvas 18 x 24 inches.  I was able to get a great photo of Adam in "half-smile."  To sketch the image on the canvas, I use watercolor pencils one in ocher and one in raw umber to emphasize key shadow lines.  A little water and a good wipe will remove any "mistakes!"

Tomorrow -- the first underpainting!

Portraits in History -- Part 1 (continued)

So here is my model, Miram.  If there is anyone who looks "Mediterranean" it's her!  With her direct gaze and soulful eyes, she could have stepped off one of the portraits in Faiyum.   So now, I had to figure out how to do flesh tones using only four colors.  Just to remind you, the colors are: White, Black, Yellow Ocher, and Venetian Red. 

Ocher has a poor tinting strength but the red and black are strong colors.  I was able to mix a passable flesh color out of ocher, venetian red and white.  The red and black together made a chestnut brown which could be added to the shadows.  I also decided to use that chestnut brown for the shirt with more black in the shadows.  The hair is black the irises are red and black with black pupils and the lips are red with a touch of ocher and white.  I did miss my beloved vermilion especially for the lips.  When thinking about the background color, I experimented with adding a touch of black to the ocher and mixing it with white.  The result is a beautiful warm sage green.  Here is the finished product -- I hope you like it!

Portraits in History -- Part 1

Among the painters of ancient Greece, non is considered better than Apelles.  Although non of his works survive, we know of his renown through the writings of Pliny the Elder among others and he famously painted portraits of Alexander the Great and his father, Philip of Macedon.  Not much is known about his style of painting and the only copies of his work are in mosaic.  Pliny writes that Apelles palette consisted of only four colors -- black, white, an iron-based yellow (yellow ocher) and an iron-based red.  I wanted to see if it were possible to create a credible portrait using only these four colors!

I needed an example.  First I went to the known mosaics based on Apelles paintings to see if they would say anything but mosaics aren't blended -- I needed a painting!  I then remembered the funerary portraits at Faiyum in Roman Egypt I saw at the Louvre and the Metropolitan in NY and sure enough -- there was the palette.  The roman painters had more colors at their disposal and they show up from time to time but in the flesh especially, those four colors are used: 

I decided I needed to try and re-create this style of painting.  One big difference was that I would use oil instead of encaustic.  The four tube colors I used were Ivory Black, Titanium White, Yellow Ocher and for the iron-based red I decided on Venetian Red for its pink hue when combined with white.   Now I needed a subject.  I wanted someone Mediterranean looking to keep to the theme of ancient Greece.  I was thinking about all my friends when I stumbled across a photo of my friend Miriam on Facebook.  I asked her if I could use the photo and then began...

Tomorrow, the process!

Well, here we go!

 

 Dara

Oil on Canvas, 2010

Here is the beginning of my blog.  Let me introduce myself.  I am Paul Morin, a San Francisco-based portrait artist.  My work is currently on 5 continents and in the White House collection.  I paint portraits, figures and landscapes and am available for commissions.  My style is very "old master" with a modern sensibility -- I start with a complete underpainting and then add glazes and scumbles in local color.  I feel that my work is timeless and won't look dated in 5 years like so much of what is being produced right now.

In this blog, I hope to be able to give you a look inside  the process of creating a portrait and my reasons for being a portrait artist.  Commissioning a portrait is something that is a bit scary -- you pay a lot of money to someone you may not know very well and hope you will get something in return that looks like you and captures your spirit .  In these postings, I plan to de-mystify the process and hopefully help you understand what an amazing and gratifying experience the whole process is!  At the end of the process, you are left with a small piece of immortality that you are able to hand down to future generations!