Monday's portrait from life Saskia

Saskia kept a lovely smile. She was amazing. She even fell asleep while modelling still smiling!
I love the zap of this portrait and her hair..I just have to figure out how to keep that zap as i refine the portraits. My self portrait looks drab next to this one.

Creating my self portrait

The portrait group I paint with are all painting a self portrait for an exhibition at the end of this month. I've left it a bit late but at least I've started.
I'm painting myself without glasses as a lot of the portrait will be painted looking in the mirror and I can't see myself from that distance with glasses..( that's my story & I'm sticking to it..lol's)..No it is true.
I started with a photo to capture the concept and I used the photo to get the sketch accurately done.

I'm painting in acrylic paint and this is just getting the angle of the head and relative distances of the length of the nose and eyes etc..It's pretty rough as I'll be constantly correcting it until I feel it's right.At this stage I just want to be sure the whole portrait will fit on the canvas.

 

 

 

 

 I quite like this stage but I have to change it as it's incorrect.The left eye needs to go down , the face shape changes a bit as does the hair shape. When I had the photo taken I had a narrow strappy top on that makes me look like I haven't got anything on.The shoulders are too distracting anyway so I'll add a shirt later.

This is more accurate.The photo was taken outside in flat lighting .Now I want to add a spot light for a bit of extra interest with the lighting.

Adjusted sketch with lighting now coming from the left and highlighting the left side of my face and hand. Not a bad start. I can see the left eye is still a bit big but I'll adjust that as I go to Oils next. From now on I'll be painting mainly with the mirror. Typical.. The first thing we tell the model at portrait classes is to take up a pose they can comfortably hold for 3hrs at 20mins a time..So what do I do.. My neck is going to kill me! lol's The next stage will be to intorduce colour in Oils. I want this portrait to be very colourful.

Tania -This weeks 2.30hr portrait from a model

 Tania

 30 x 40cms 

unfinished Oil on canvas

Painted from life

I'm pretty happy with this portrait. It has captured the light nicely .I deliberately left her eyes less finished than usual as I liked the blue coming through.Thanks for sittting so well Tania.

Zarley's creation - Here is the reference photo for my next portrait - Zarley.

Ashley contacted me from Canada wanting a portrait of Zarley her Portugese Waterdog . Zarley had a stroke recently and had to be put down.

' Zarley was loyal and devoted to a fault - he would have gone to the ends of the earth for me.'  Ashley

He sounds like he was a great dog . I'm looking forward to doing him justice in a portrait.I will show his eyes in the portrait.

I love the writing on his bed . It says  ' If my dreams come true it will rain bones!' We have cropped the original photo so  Zarley will be larger in the portrait.

His portrait will be a 40 x 50cms unframed Oil on canvas that can be rolled and sent in a tube to keep shipping economical . Ashley will frame him later.

Here's a few photos to show progress so far..

I was getting a bit worried at this 'ugly' stage..lol's. I decided to start on his face first .I usually do the whole portrait at once but i wanted to get past the ugly stage quicker!

 

Phew.. I can see it's going to come ok..There is a long way to go yet! 
His face isn't finished yet but I'll go and do the rest of the portrait and come back to it later.

Here's where I'm up to about 55% finished. I've covered the whole canvas except for the white area with the type.I now have to finish that and refine Zarley's face and body and the bed.

Today's happenings

It was a beautiful sunrise this morning and turned into a very hot day 33 degree C.

I just watched this fellow ambling past.

 He was being dive bombed by an irate Peewee. Maybe it was her chicks that are in his belly.He's certainly had a good feed! The roos were a bit uneasy about him and hopped off.

My equine art prize entry so far.

I decided to get an early start on this years entry as I was too rushed last year and didn't like the result.
You had to go to a racetrack and take photos to paint from and the theme is 'At the track'
I'm not sure what I'm going to call it yet but something like ' Pre Race Banter ".
Here I'm just quickly drawing in all the horses etc to get them to sit together and make sure they fit on the board.

It's really rough and I soon realised the horse was all out of proportion so I redid him with shorter legs and a smaller body. 
I had placed a different head and neck on the front horse rather than use the one in the photo so I had to adjust things so the head etc is the right size for the body and make it look natural.

I'm enjoying painting very roughly and not worrying about whether I have a likeness. It doesn't matter if it looks like the horses and jockeys - they can be generic. Although knowing me the jockeys probably will look like the people by the end..lol's

Here I have the two main horses in and I quite like it although the front horse is still a bit scrunched up proportion wise.

I've got the general idea laid out now.
 I'm not sure if I'll keep all the other horses in but they can stay in for now. Grr I just realised the rear horse and jockey are too big so I'll have to redo them.

Thanks goodness for acrylic paint! I just painted out the horse so it was white again and now I'm putting some lines in to give me an idea of how big it should be. Painting is all about trial and error..making each stage more correct than the one before until it's finally ' finished' ( which is subjective!).

 

That's better!

That will do for now. I'm still not sure what colours I'll make each horse or whether it will have they'll be in a scene or just a coloured background. I'll see what I think as I go along. I love the way I can do whatever I want! 
It's tempting to make the rear horse a grey but I think that will draw too much attention.You have to think of the overall effect and whether a change will get you closer or further away to getting the painting saying what you want it to say.

I want the focus to be more on the jockeys rather than the horses.
I just found out I can't change the colour of the horse ..oh well..I'll make the front horse like the original too.. 

In memory of Cassie

When Alysha contacted me she wanted me to create a portrait of her mother's Rottweiler Cassie as a surprise mother's day gift.

Cassie had passed away 6 months ago.

I finished Cassie's portrait today and sent a photo of it it away for approval .

 Alysha said it was ok to post her on the internet as her mum isn't internet savvy so we have no worries about her accidently stumbling across the portrait!

 Here is the portrait and what Alysha said when she saw the photo.

Cassie
35 x 35cms unframed Oil
'The portrait is stunning! I can't get over how amazing it is!
Thanks, you've done such a wonderful job!'

Alysha