Portraits in Watercolours PART 2: Proportions & colours

The second part of the Portrait workshop is a bit more about the actual painting. The group was unexpectedly small yet concentrated and we had a fabulous time. Here are the highlights:

Around Proportions:

Make sure you draw your first sketch lightly, too much or too dark a pencil will stain your portrait grey and will act as a shadow.

When in doubt, measure. If you work from a photo, measure with a ruler or with your pencil or your finger. Use that for the relative size, and for the angle
 

 (If you draw from a live model, close one eye when you measure!)

Sketch the basic shape of the skull of your model with hints of the hair. Then to be as objective as you can, turn your drawing as well as the photograph upside down. Draw the features, measuring carefully.

After basic sketch follows Painting: 

First mix the lightest as well as the darkest skin colour. Use try-out paper, let the colour dry because it dries lighter and you may have to add a bit of pigment. Avoid yellow, use ochre or raw sienna instead.
If there is a grey tone, rather choose green than blue.

The shadow is often much darker than you think. To see this well in your example picture, squint! (squeeze your eyes). 

After you have panted the lightest and darkest parts of the face, paint the in-between colours and then the parts with 'other' tones, like eyes, mouth and teeth.

Note that the eyes and the teeth are the only really shiny parts of the face. Especially the eyes. If they have highlights, leave those white. Everything else is darker
Also important to remember, the white of the eyes as well as the teeth are never really white...

The poetry of your portrait.

In our workshop we'd like it if the portrait resembles the mode. But it is also good to bring out the poetry! Because of their transparency, watercolours have a beautiful softness and a personal touch helps too. 
As we are using example-photos of people we don't know, a good idea would be to give them a name. The people painted below are Susannah, Heather, Peter, Philippa and Artemisia. The first portrait is an actual family member, of Brenda, her daughter 
Other ways of giving a personal touch are backgrounds, and colours of clothing and accessories...

And here are pix of the portrait-exercises

And then there were other projects :

 
Laura finished her Antibes painting! It will be turned into place-mats - what a great idea - and the perfect illustration for a lovely meal in the sun...

 
A near-perfect spheres exercise by new participant Beth! She has survived the first Watercolour class since she was 5 - and will definitely come back later in the year... We look forward to that.

Sonya has spent her summer far far away and she was very inspired to paint her spirit-animal, the buffalo (Divine, strength, balance, thankfulness, wealth and firmness.). It survived even her fierce criticism - and we all loved it! There is so much mystery, warmth, danger and character in this picture! Especially in the original, where the orange is much deeper (Sorry for the less than perfect photo) 

Very interesting abstract by Sandra - with a striking beam of sunlight, hard shadow and a spot of reflecting light that in the next stage changed into a black hole. Is my interpretation. But whatever, it has volume, transparency, interesting patterns and most of all, is intriguing...

Last but by no means least, Judith returned for 1 session in between travel and golf, to continue her search for the ultimate serene painting. We are all so impressed and funnily everyone has their own, different favourite. Mine is the one on the left, with the thin white line. I actually thought it was finished, but it isn't - so things can still change. But, super cool and I hope she will be back soon!

 

Next week: 3/4 view portraits