'Titch'
Pastel on Canson Paper 8" x 10" approx.
Please click on the picture to see the building up of the portrait from outline to finish
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First I like to work on the outline on a seperate sheet of paper, so once you're happy with it you can simplfy it an transfer it on to the paper you are going to work on.(This also means you can always start again quickly if you need to!!! Luckily this happens virtually never, unless the artist is being particularly temperamental that day!! - famous last words!) Then I always start with the eyes, from the start I feel the need to feel them staring out of the paper at you to bring |
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the life into the painting from the word go. With Titchs' eyes being dark the only colours used were black, dark brown (a burnt umber) and a slightly paler umber, with a mid warm grey to pick out the bottom eyelid. They remain lifeless though until you introduce the high-lights, done using a very pale sky blue and white.It's always surprising how the smallest hint of high-light and reflection on the eye and capturing a bit of moistness on the top edge of the eyelid is in someways the simplest bit to do, but the part that breathes all the life into them. Now she's looking out of the paper at me it's time to start building up the structure of her face, beginning with the darker areas of shadow, to knock out the brightness of the paper and blocking in the base colours of the different areas of her coat. From the more reddy brown ears, to the general ochre in the base of the main face. Always remembering to keep the rough direction of the |
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'scribbling', marks you are making in the same direction of the coat in each area. At this point, then, I find it easier if start working on the nose in reasonable detail so you end up with, between it and the eyes, three points of interest to work between and build up the structure of the face (and just incase you start getting bored with one bit, you can move about a bit!!). Once having got a reasonable area covered, and not blowing any of the dust off, start smudging the colours together, always following the contour and direction the hair lies. Initially at this stage you're mainly tinting the paper to the basic colours, but also to a degree trying and |
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experimenting with the colours to find the perfect mix to achieve the palette/colour range needed. Obviously there's a certain amount of this that comes easier with practise, knowing how colours are going to work together as you build up the layers. In general it's best working from dark to light, but as with anything, there's no hardfast rules, normally what feels right is going to work right!! (famous last words again!!). Also considering the shadows, darkening the colour isn't necessarily introducing black or darker |
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variants of the same colour, but also using the colour effectively opposite it on the colour wheel, eg in simple terms, if using bright red use bright green (effectively an even mix of blue and yellow) to kill/dull the colour of to drop it into the shadows. In the case of Titch the main colour to achieve this was a grey/green, or to be more precise deep umber green, to counter the yellows of the ochres used. Now all that's left to do is the detail of the hair!!!! |
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which hopefully if the background colours are right will only involve two, maybe three colours, as used gently you are basically blending the colours already there to create the texture of the hair, rather than laying down too much more colour. Tend to work across the portrait two or three times like this with a gentle smudge in between, just enough to soften off the marks made, not lose them entirely. In doing this it builds up the feeling of the density of the hair. Then hopefully, finally, clean off all the finger prints, which tend to be a lot with me due to the fact I'm quite messy! the lightest of smudging, or almost just gently tap your finger around the edges (the ears, top of head and below the mouth) to soften off the sharpness of the marks, just helps to throw the eyes and nose forward and out of the paper..........and of course if happy SIGN IT!!!!!....otherwise have a nice cuppa!!
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