Use paint to paint!
I always find it amazing to see so many painters use little paint. Too poor and too cautious. Are they afraid of paint? Load your brush!
A new short demo
A new short demo
Last week I showed you how to start a portrait in oil. This week I finished the portrait and I made a short demonstration video. Have fun!
Learn how to start a portrait in oil.
Learn how to start a portrait in oil.
In this video demonstration I show how to start a portrait in oil paint, this time from observation, and based on photography.
I use high quality oil prepared canvas. In advance I applied two extra layers of oil painting primer. I made it off-white, adding a small amount of oil paint: ivory black and yellow ochre. Now, after two days, the surface is perfectly dry. For sketching I use charcoal because it is easy to erase. I love that material!
I start by drawing the vertical center line of the face which is a slightly inclined. Measuring with the compass, from the top to the chin I transfer the maximum length of the face. And from the bottom upward, I find the marker points of the lips, the nose, the eyes and the hairline. I make a horizontal centre line that intersects the center of the eyes, and mark the width of the face and the ears. After drawing the contours I complete the drawing with the features. I take the mirror and I see the drawing and the photograph at the same time. Mirrored I can judge more easy the entire proportion and the separate details. Try it yourself and you will never work without a mirror anymore!
When I am satisfied I make the underpainting in oils: raw umber. If the charcoal bothers me, I sweep it away with my finger. I did not fix the drawing, but of course you can do if you think it necessary. In the beginning I don´t use any medium. Later I block in the large areas with a bigger brush and I dilute the paint with citrus turpentine. And during the entire progress I keep checking the proportions.
After one or two days the underpainting is dry enough to start the real oil painting.
Visiting our friends Saad Ali & Monique Bastiaans
Visiting our friends.
This weekend we paid a visit to our artists friends Saad Ali and Monique Bastiaans who live near Valencia. We shared our friendship and talked about art till words came out our ears. Monique explained the finishing touches of her exhibition later this month in Valencia, and Saad showed his sketches for large fresco´s. Contagious and inspiring.
Click on the image to see her website.
Monique Bastiaans has lived in Spain since 1989 and is moving between different styles of three-dimensional work with the same ease as she is using varied materials. Not only does she produce monumental transparent installations and temporary interventions in the public domain, but also colourful objects of plastic, glass, stone and ceramics. All her work shows an inseparable link between form, colour and material.
Click on the image to see his website.
Saad Ali’s magical paintings find their origin in Arabic mythology and Iraqi cultural history. Through his education and long stay in Florence, Saad Ali became acquainted with the western style of traditional painting. From these rich sources he forms his own mythical world, in which faith in a joyful future is depicted. He was born in Iraq in1949 and studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence and Perugia.
Pre-mixing flesh tones for portrait painting
Pre-mixing flesh tones for portrait painting
Starting a portrait I always prepare my palette carefully. In the picture you see the palette that I made for the video tutorial “Portrait of a little girl”.
People often have difficulties with mixing the flesh colours. And indeed in the beginning it is not so easy. In all my videos I spend a lot of attention to the explanation how I mix my colours. In this demonstration, the flesh tones are of a half-dark skin complexion.
