Painting Portraits

I have always been drawn to portraits. The eyes, the expressions, the "feel" of someone.  I've been attempting to gain a grasp of just how to paint a portrait...most of my trying has been in acrylics.  While I have had some success, I went to a workshop this weekend and it was in oils.  Boy did that put a totally different spin on the process!  When life allows, I'll be trying to paint another oil portrait.  I also had probably the best teacher there ever was!  I love it when people who "can" share their knowledge!

Beach Buddies

I am having a hard time figuring out my painting "Style".  I've done a few portraits and will post later.  I think I might like them best.  THIS I had major fun with!  But...no faces so it wasn't nearly as daunting.  AGH!

Scarlett O'Hara Portrait

The other day I got it into my head to paint Scarlett O'hara.  I took pictures of some of the phases, but wanted to go ahead and post.  This is acrylic, done on masonite.

Civil War Painting

 

 Well...here's my Civil War painting.  I love parts of it, other parts I just want to start over. I used two different kinds of paint: water soluble oils and acrylics.  The oils gave me more than a few fits!

I did photograph some of my steps.  Here's what I have:

Sketched, base coated and blocked in.

Hair, skin, shading and a few details.

Little better, still much missing.

No smoke, yet.  I never really liked the foliage.

Smoke added, but still not crazy about the foliage.  SO, I "fixed" it below.

I still don't know!

Pet Portrait 2

I

I painted another pet portrait of a friend of mine's dog.  MUCH, much easier to paint a dark haired dog than a white dog!

Pet Portrait

I went to another painting workshop this past weekend.  Had a blast painting my snaggled toothed Lillie!  I'll be doing another one for a friend soon, and I'll post the "how to's" soon!

Christmas House

I am REALLY starting to love to paint!  For the most part it's still hit or miss, but I was pleased with "Our Christmas Home", that really doesn't look like our home at all!

This time I actually did photograph a step by step, but...I accidentally deleted the first ones.  I was so sick.  Anyway, I'll upload the ones I managed to keep and show you how the painting evolved and changed along the way.

At this point, I hadn't added the foreground trees yet, but I had begun placement (notice the long blue line).  The side walk is massive, too.  MUCH tweaking yet to be done!

TREES! and way too much yellow reflection.  Still did not know what to do with the snow on the roof at this time or what to do with the massive sidewalk!...OR the shading on the roof...or the snow in the foreground.  I hadn't painted my bows on the wreaths yet. It was a mess.  I didn't like the trees behind the house.  I felt they were too much.  At this point, I didn't have much hope for the painting.

Beginning to feel much better!  I brightened up the moon.  I toned down the shading on the roof.  I removed the trees over the top of the house.  I made the sidewalk MUCH smaller.  I added more snow to the foreground and blended away some of the yellow.

Finally.  I added back some of the shading I had on the roof.  I added more shaking to the house.  I made the tree limbs around the moon longer.  I hung icicles off the roof.

I know next year I will see all sorts of improvement I need to make, but for now, our Christmas Home is a "happy little painting!"

Painting Gourds

Well, another fail in that I forgot to take pictures in the making of these little fellows!

I did take this one which shows I first spray painted them in white, then went over them in red.  I obviously painted the faces on the white part, using a flesh tinted paint color for the face.  Everything else is pretty much self explanatory, except for the hair.  If you do decide to paint Santa's or anything else with hair, a must have is a "rake brush".  For Santa, you base coat your beard and hair a grey color, then dilute white paint and slightly go over the grey with an almost white wash.  The rake brush really gives the appearance of hair!

While I don't have any step by step instructions, I would add that if you want to add texture to the "fur" of a Santa hat, or add snow to an art object, Snow-Tex is an awesome and easy to use product!