In tonight’s painting class I was going to teach the students how to paint skin color and do faces. I had a painting I had been working on to show them the techniques, but remembered I had a small canvas in the back seat of my car. My wife was in attendance so I asked her to pose while I drew.
I first started with an oval shape then drew in the facial structure – eye sockets, cheek bones, lips, brows, chin, etc. Next I drew the shapes of values – dark under the nose, above the eyes below the brows, under the cheekbones; light – where the highlighted areas were, on the chin, the cheek and on the forehead. The medium values were everywhere else. I mixed three shades of color using alizarin crimson, yellow ochre and white to come up with the skin tones. I painted the dark values in first, then the lightest, then the medium. Soon the face came to life with real structure. I was pleased. The students were too.
Comments on Tonight’s Portrait Demo
I always am amazed at how you can take a bunch of colors, put them on a canvas together and come up with a great-looking, recognizable, 2D image.
I think i propably did something wrong, oh, well, we just wanted you to know how much we appreciated the demo the other night. I’ve already tried my hand at face drawing in ink. It is harder than it appeared when you demoed. But with practice hopefully we’ll improve. Thank you for sharing some very valuable techniques. We so enjoy our classes and look forward to them each week.Thanks again. Harold and Janice
Good explanation. It was helpful. Thanks.