Tuesday, July 19, 2011

The lovely Helena

The painting class felt confident enough to tackle a watercolour portrait of my lovely assistant on the last day. Here is my demonstration.

A three quarter portrait is the most interesting one. The challenge is to get the head and face to "turn" to look three dimensional and not like a stylized flat Egyptian painting, so one eye must be properly tucked behind the nose. The level positioning of the eyes is very important. One eye often tends to migrate onto another level.

I had to rework this picture to correct the eyes. One of the advantages of stretching paper is that you can wash off some of the painting and rework it when the paper dries.

"I've encouraged both myself and others to experience the joy of drawing. It may be separate from painting, but it is certainly key to much that is great in painting. To find a line, to make it work, to really see it and know it holds life and energy or is pregnant with feeling, is to experience a kind of excitement that even sensitive observers cannot truly know." Robert Genn

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