Portrait of a poem

My working process;.--- I select my reference and begin a detailed face preliminary line drawing, transferred to canvas , and starting refining on getting a general likeness, with shading stablishing my values, I aim for a finshed drawing in this early stage, I like to solve any drawing problems, that could be an issue later on in the painting, but around the figure face the lines are complete loose, my stage 2 is the imprimatura with burnt umber and raw sienna I´ve always used the "fat over lean" principle, since I´ll be building my painting in layers, I do not use any oily médiums in the early stages, creating or keeping a certain amount of luminosity, keeping my shadows thin and translucent and the ligths thin and opaque, then the portrait is lifelike three dimensional -feel
The stage 3.- is underpainting creating color harmonies and keep them unified, one rule I like is to use the same colors used on portrait are used into the background,when it is posible, --- I like the underpainting to show through, this portrait it is rather small so features are practically similar color but with the necessary edge  for the flesh tones I do not premix the paints for this particular size . then I blocked the face with ultramarine wash and then start in the shadows with de different colors added as needed, all this notes are just for the face because I want the person looks as it is;  for the rest of the background painting I work in accordance but not necessarly identical to my reference here is where I apply harmony, color and feeling to créate a shape and space composition, finally in order to get a better result, and sometimes I´m doing a combination of material techniques to enhance a color and/or shape

                              Ref PO646 Portrait of a poem

She is a great dancer, so as an artist part of her job is to be in tune with the steps of life to deepen the mystery, I like most of their pictures from where I took this amazing and wonderful portrait reference from Mahafsoun

Tonal simple skin study in a dark and in ligth background

I always do a tonal study before progressing to the finished work
I started with an approach color impasto underpainting and begin to wash in large áreas of transparent color, developing the underpainting with average tone and rhythm and gesture of the pose, rigth after I will move on to adding opaque paintings , I´m conscious of my edges, wet into wet as I render the figure, adding background elements to highligth the figure taking into account always the effect of ligth that falls on the subject for the dark figure ref PO645;  I add glazes of color to the background, keeping my darks very transparent, skin tones are for me a work in progress the main differences between these two paints are:
basic flesh (gold ochre; cad scarlet; titanium White )
            dark shadow; ( ultramarine blue, cad.orange)
            ligth shadow  ( cerulean blue, carmine, violet)
body main features; raw,and/or burnt sienna)

                                      ref; PO 644

                                             ref PO645

Candle excersize final result ref PO643
(see previous post); enhanced through oil and Dammar barniz addition:

Water color  into impasto médium, to be applied first with palette knife

This is a new creative developed technique to apply color by mean of previous colored impasto, so there is no particular undercoat necessity, the color is applied with a palette knife and mixed through out the canvas , so when it dries these color layers I apply additional watercolor which work basically as additional color transparency above the particular "different color undercoat" making many color tones working together, in some way is like use collage to build surfaces, the result is in what I´m working with, ----so this is a kind of experiment to become more creative, I´ll do two paintings; one in a lighty environment  and one in a dark zone to check color mixing results.- the first is a painting know reference idea.-CO642;  and the second will be a candle, within  a dark enviroment and the reference was taken from a photography I liked it; .-  ref. PO643

                            first excersize ref CO642

 

                                         2nd excersize,  ref. PO643

 

I think, after did these two excersizes, they can be enhanced with oil painting glazes due dark áreas are too dull related to dark áreas with oil painting, nevertheless brigth barniz addition can make a difference, at the end what really matters is the result,.- like I said this was an experiment,(up to this point process)  which I´ll try to improve through out next paintings 

 

THE TRUE METHOD OF KNOWLEDGE IS EXPERIMENT

Seascape excersize;
The choice of base color was the first decisión, looking for tonal contrast, normally I leave small áreas of the base color to give the paint more sparkle and depth cerulean blue and orange plus oxide green to work with, building the picture up layer by layer as the work progressed, and yellow and green into the front wave do not forget the strokes in direction with rhythm to the movement of the wáter,

                                             ref PO641

 

This time; I will proudly display the drawings of my great niece (Danny Gonzaléz) whom gift to me the latest drawing notebook. She is 9 years old and like to paint and drawing, This remainds me a Pablo Picasso´s quote, that said.- "It took me 4 years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetine to paint like a child", and that is because among other things, art is the elimination of the unnecessary

Design in Nature;

When taking nature photos in location, its important to take many photos of something you need;  however in this particular case I took a photographic reference from  the web  cropping as I needed to; so using ligth, tone and technique you can make some parts pop out, I aim for the best view and make decisions accordingly
I started by drawing onto an approched colored acrylic average background (adding and marking texture) then blocking in;  and establishing dark areas building up layer by layer with oil painting to complete in fine color tuning,-- the final touch was the colored glaze to uniform a particular crimson color, This painting it was a kind of practice trying to add or experiment with some phosphorescent colors.- so that´s way I changed from acrylic base to oil finishing in order to ligth up

                                             Ref PO640

                                The flowers blossoms for their own joy
                                       sharing fragrance and beauty

Luminosity

Capture the feeling of ligth, flowing in, around and through the subject
To do so I did an experiment with barniz and color above a pattern with a few large shapes trying to previsualize the design in three main values.- the whites and ligthest values the mid-tones and the darks 
I kept the whites dry and out of color pouring (I didn´t mask this time)
I mixed my colors with yellow all of them.-- above of and underpainting surface of the basic mid-tone
As I worked with acrylic, all the surface was truly wet (avoiding design white áreas) for color mixing flow (few colors for this subject viridian, cerulean blue, ochre, orange, raw umber & white)
As I´m working in layers, the white presence is added and mixing in particular areas - after dried, I applied barniz with additional white to make it shine and capture fading ligth.- This was an experiment to check out how the barniz with color work ref PO639
If you hear a voice within you say "it won´t work"
Then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced
         
                                                 PO639

The liberty to explore and change

 

     Form painter; As an artista student; I strongly believe that in art anything is posible, so during the process of painting, no matter what stage  I am at, I do not hesitate, to change, modify or even entirely remove what I´m painting if I feel that the work is not what I like to produce, the only thing really makes me satisfied is being successful in the final stage when I finish the final touch and stroke. I often have to step back and squint my eyes to identify snags needing correction and to make sure that everything is in the right place. Also technically sometimes I leave the painting unfinished, as I do not like to over-paint, focusing in the common theme and subject matter, or technique is
   When I complete the basic idea I observe for some days to see if there is anything else to refine, I like to work in more tan one piece at a time in order to prevent my focus, sometimes I expect viewers to judje additional details to include when the painting is for a particular purpose before fix it.

                                          CO638

                
                Families that grow together, stay together ............forever!;

Choose a Lighting Plan and stick to it;
Establish the source of ligth, everything follows from the choice, keep it simple, lighting reference should be consistent, this was taken from a picture to experiment with lighting ref PO637.-  Color and ligth, should be given the form illumination can transform the subject you don´t have to paint things the way they appear the modos be consciously choosing for a color scheme. the response of this effects of atmosphere and illumination is largely unconscious

                             Ref PO637 background ligth in a rose

                    When you ligth a candle, you also cast a shadow