Portraits in oil

rickscool wrote

on 4 Oct 2008 3:36 PM

Please post anything you would like pertaining to portraits in oil

rickscool wrote

on 11 Oct 2008 9:48 PM

Painting Portraits: Principles, skin tones, ect.

Great link

http://www.oil-painting-techniques.com/portrait-paintings.html

DanaD12 wrote

on 16 Oct 2008 8:21 AM

It's good to be here and for some reason???everything is underlined.  Having a problem posting but I'll get it eventually.  I'll be posting a portrait I'm working on later today or tomorrow.  Having a devil of a time with it.  Anyway, thanks for this forum!

DanielH wrote

on 17 Oct 2008 4:57 AM

I haven't done a lot of portraiture work in oils yet (besides an old self-portrait), but I'm definitely interested in pursuing it. I took a portrait painting class my senior year of art school with a locally-renowned portrait artist in the Cleveland, OH area. That was probably the best instruction I received during my entire schooling.

For my thesis I did a number of Celtic mythological character portraits (I was always inspired by the French academics and the Pre-Raphaelites) but they were done in a more graphic style - pencil renderings covered in washes of watercolor. Below is a portrait of Deidre and Naisei - the "Romeo and Juliet" of Celtic mythology. Another tale of star-crossed lovers who ended up dead because of their love for each other. As the myth has it - two rowan trees grew up from their graves and intertwined with each other. Let me know what you think. (The models were my college roommate, Matt and another illustrator friend, Pam). By the way, if you question his hairstyle - I purposefully made it that way. In my research I found that the Irish Celts would rub woad (a sort of swamp-slime, for lack of better definition) into their hair and form it into spikes. See? And you thought it was an 80's phenomenon! Enjoy!

rickscool wrote

on 17 Oct 2008 7:01 AM

I really like it Dan, and love the way you have the subjects self framed, reminds me of an icon beginning a new chapter in an archaic manuscript only much better executed. And I much enjoyed reading the background you provided!

I'm not good at all at portraits, this is my self portrait

DanielH wrote

on 17 Oct 2008 9:09 AM

Ha, thanks Rick! Your self-portrait is good too. Maybe just add a little more shading under the chin...

DanielH wrote

on 17 Oct 2008 9:36 AM

Here's one from about 2 years ago. I call it "Self-Portrait as Pharisee". It is based on the etching "The Pharisee" by Rembrandt.

This was a drawing I scanned and colored digitally in Photoshop. Honestly, I'm getting less interested in digital art lately... Nothing beats having an actual piece of art that you can display as-is - rather than just a print-out.

DanaD12 wrote

on 17 Oct 2008 1:39 PM

Daniel, Very nice but correct me if I'm mistaken.  This is digital, right?  I assumed this forum was for "Portraits in Oil".  I'd love to see this done completely in oil.  I realize there is a lot to learn from going digital but my main interest in doing the portrait in oil  HOpe to see this in oil! 

DanielH wrote

on 17 Oct 2008 1:47 PM

Hi - Sorry for getting off-topic.

dcorc wrote

on 17 Oct 2008 7:24 PM

I posted THIS, earlier, and it seems to have been removed. If posts which are civil and contain useful information are to be binned here without any discussion with the member concerned, then my participation on this site is likely to be very shortlived. 

EDIT - I've just been notified that this has been moved to the Digital Art group Well, its not needed there. The people over there already know these things. Its the oilpainters I'm addressing this to. (And, by the way, I'm an oil-painter too, for those who don't know me.)

Reposting:

Re: Portraits in oil
By dcorc in Mastering Oils

Rick:

...but I consider the "Art" in digital art to be the fertile mind of the artist that conceived of and visualized the  final product. The technique is computer expertise...

Errr.... no, sorry, Rick, but I disagree. The technique, for digital painting (that is, with a wacom tablet, using a program such as Painter or Artweaver) is still painting expertise. It requires knowledge of drawing, values, colour, edges, and indeed brushwork, just as much as painting in a traditional medium.

There are lots of ways of producing artwork on a computer, and its certainly true that some of these are in (sometimes large) part a matter of computer expertise, but digital painting relies on a lot of the same skill-set as traditional painting, to the extent that experience in both is synergistic.

A lot of the core painting skills that oilpainters struggle with are not actually medium-specific, and are as relevant in digital work as they are in oil-painting or other traditional media.

Sorry for deflecting this off the specific topic of oil-portraiture again here, but I think its important that others reading along get a balance of viewpoints on this issue.

Dave

rickscool wrote

on 17 Oct 2008 7:53 PM

Since these postings had nothing to do with the topic "Portraits in oil"

I thought it appropriate to move them to the digital arts group

Along with moving them I sent Dave the following message;

"Hi dcorc, we are getting way off the topic of oil so I moved my post and your reply over to the group digital art.
Thanks"

dcorc wrote

on 18 Oct 2008 8:52 AM

Apologies, Rick, I jumped the gun, slightly. As you say, you did notify me, we "cross-posted". I was, though, responding to the comments you had made within this thread, and I was trying to make the point that the differences may not be as great as you seemed to believe they are. Members here might like to check out the discussion over there, and the little portrait demo I've just posted there on that thread. I think they are likely to find the process and concepts pretty familiar.

Now, anybody got any oil-portraits they are working on, and would like to show? :) 

Here's a sequence for a little triple portrait I did for a friend about 3 years ago (I'm painting using different approaches from this, more directly, now). Its 16 x 20 inches, oil on canvas, and based off an old photo of her (now grown-up) children. Its a bit limited because of the small size, I'd rather do something with 3 portrait heads in it as a larger format.

Sketch in umber, on a white+umber background, over charcoal placement drawing

Starting to build shading:

reinforcing darks with burnt umber + ultramarine:

Pushing the lights with several thin feathered-out layers of white:

OK, underpainting complete. Using white over umber like this gives very nice pearly "optical greys".

On to the colours, applied here as several thin velatura/glaze layers, with more opacity in the lights:

I liked the "rabbit caught in headlights" expression on the baby :)

Dave

DanaD12 wrote

on 18 Oct 2008 9:22 AM

Dave, really good!  I especially like the child on the left.  You've nailed the values on all three children without overdoing them. So nice.

rickscool wrote

on 18 Oct 2008 11:00 AM

Dave, Thank you for posting this WIP series, very nicely done! We can learn from this.

Comrade Vladimir wrote

on 20 Oct 2008 1:51 PM

great painting dave

super demo!!