So here you are ready to try your first portrait painting from life. Maybe you are at a workshop and wondering what you will learn and how you will grow in your art practice. You have your french easel set up in front of you and are squeezing out paint on your palette as they pose the model and put up various colored drapes behind to form a background. Once the timer is set, the model is still, everyone is quiet and very busy painting, trying to make the most of their time. There is a living breathing human being sitting right there in front of you. Where do you begin? What do you do first? What should you accomplish in the first twenty minute session?
I am not an expert, just growing in the practice of life painting. Here are suggestions gleaned from a life painting workshop I took in 2007 at
Scottsdale Artist School... a great school that attracts professional working artists to come in and give workshops. The teacher was
Michael Malm. He demonstrated every morning what we were expected to do in the afternoon. He listed his palette colors and showed us how he laid them out. The image above is the third life study I did at the Malm workshop. This drawing took too long to really finish the skin tones, so I wiped off the paint at the end of class. I use it as an example of what a life painting may look like in the early stages. Though there are as many ways to do it, as there are artists. Even the subject may dictate how you will start. I will address that in an upcoming post.
There is a
American Artist Highlights magazine, titled
Step by Step that I bought at Barnes and Noble. It has many of great artists demos, step by step how they produce a painting. One such demo is Michael Malm, so I will describe the the first few steps somewhat as in the magazine adding what I remember from his workshop as well. I highly recommend to buy the magazine before it sells out, a real treasure for us who are reaching to learn and grow in our art. Besides then you can see the painting he does and how to finish.
Step 1 Malm began his demonstration by toning his canvas with a warm color. (I usually mix a hue close to the skin color, as it looks on the light side of the face in the light the model is in. Then thin it the tone with
odorless
mineral
spirits type paint thinner and loosely brush it on the canvas. You can see this under painting in his skin, under the shirts and background on the example above.)
Then he drew the basic shapes of the models head using vine charcoal. (The sharpened vine charcoal can be drawn right over the toning and wipes off fairly easily, to a degree... but can get messy if you make a lot of mistakes. In my example above I used a warm dark tone thinned with
oms and applied with a brush. Mistakes can be cleaned up easily with a paper towel and thinner. I use both ways.)
(When drawing in the basic shapes you can start with the outline of the head, observing the angles of the "curves". Use straight lines and you will achieve a more accurate drawing. Then you can bring in the features. This model with a shaved head made this process very easy. You could also see the various planes, warm and cool tones under the north light really well on his head. So I was very thankful for the opportunity to paint him).
Step 2 Malm blocked in the basic shadow shapes around the models face. Step 3 The instructor filled in the hat and background before turning his attention to the light mass on the face. ( From my observations most professional painters are able to get these first three steps accomplished in the first 20 minute sitting with the model... drawing, background and hat,etc or early into the second session. This is great because it gives the artist the rest of the three hours to bring the painting from a block in to capturing an essence of life. All that said, I am no where near this level of proficiency yet, as it takes me a quite a while to complete the drawing).
I highly recommend
Scottsdale Artist School. Both my daughter Charity and I had a great experience there and learned so much. Scottsdale also has over 100 galleries to visit while there for inspiration. I also recommend
Michael Malm as a teacher as well. He teaches both at the
Scottsdale Artist School and in his studio in Wellsville, Utah.
This year Charity and I both were honored to be in the schools annual exhibit of students, the Best and the Brightest.
Charity Hubbard entered a life study she did at a friends house. I,
Sheri Dinardi, entered two pieces, Scent of a Rose, and was pleased that Quiet Warmth sold. Click the links on our names to see the paintings in the show. When you click on the small thumb nail it enlarges to a nice image, where you can better view the work. To see more of our work click on the links to our websites in the side bar.
Hope this will encourage you in your journey in art making!
