Life Portrait completed with a Photo

The usual life painting sessions with a group are three hours long, including several 5 minute breaks. It is a challenge to paint a portrait or figure from start to finish in three hours. You can leave the painting as it is at the end of the three hours and just let it be what it is... an oil portrait sketch.

Or if you capture something special and want to bring it to a higher level of finish, you can take a photo of the model and work on the piece more at home.  With this piece, I wiped off my drawing in the first hour and then only had 2 hours left. So I decided to take it home and bring it to a higher level of finish. If this were something I wanted to keep or sell. I could work on it one more time to improve the likeness. It is encouraging to see the results of  working on it a little while longer (5 hours total). I can by this how to use more life painting with my finished works.

Learning from Each Painting

My daughter Charity and I painted at  Outlook Studios recently. The last time in March, I painted Bill. But I did not paint the values dark enough, giving the skin a light pastey look. Bill has a very fair complexion, so it was more difficult to capture the right color in the shaded area of his face and I didn't squint enough and kept putting the light color I thought I saw into the shadow side. This time I was determined to get darker in the shadow side. So the new painting improved by learning from the previous one.

Also note I did work on this piece later, finishing background, some on the dress and softening edges, so the piece has a more finished look. This is my favorite life study that I have done to date.

Plein Air Painters in Kauai

 We took a trip to Kauai a few weeks ago. What a beautiful Island!!! It looks like a paradise of days gone by.  No wonder Jurassic Park and Raider of the Lost Arc among many others were filmed there. We didn't schedule any tours, but rather each day we took off in the car for another adventure.

 On one particular day we were walking along a beach on the north side of the island and came across three very fun and friendly plein painters... Syme, Kyoko, and Deirdre. They all have good starts on their paintings of this little slice of paradise.

 As it turns out, Syme told us he was instrumental in starting the Laguna Plein Air Painters. Here is a close up of Syme with his start. He has in a nice sky with clouds, his water and nearby sand. For his set up, he uses the same brand plein easel as I do... Easyl, only his is larger than mine. They are light weight and very portable.

Syme (rhymes with time) shows his work on the other side of the island in Hanapepe.

 Kyoko has a beautiful piece in progress as well... sky, water and beach. She has a similar set up... an Easyl prochade type box, palette easel, like Syme's. She also has a brush holder on the right side and her thinner can hanging on the right.

Both of these easels/palettes mount on a light weight camera type tripod. If it is windy, you can take a plastic grocery bag, fill it with rocks and hang it from a hook underneath to keep it stable. I also like her unbrella that is staked in the ground, which makes more sense than trying to attach it to your easel. I wonder how far a stiff wind could carry it? I don't know where to get the umbrella; but I will include a link for the easel.
Artwork Essentials This company has a variety of great products for plein air painting and have good customer service. I am very happy with both of the easels I bought from them.