Walk-Through: Live Portrait Painting in Oil
Walk-through - Live Portrait Painting in Oil
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Original art by @jnart
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Stephen Bauman is a real master at realistic natural painting. He is teacher at Florence Art Academy in Mölndal Sweden. I hade the chance to attend one of his short 4 day intensive workshops. This is a brief walk-through when I did my portrait and some good tips. I hope you can learn something and get inspired to explore more.
All the elements we spoke of are the following. You find much better teachers elsewhere on the internet but you should really check them out if you want to progress as an natural painter.
- Values: The relative degree of lightness or darkness on a scale of black and white.
Color-values: The relative degree of lightness or darkness of a particular color mixture.
Line/edge quality: The relative darkness, lightness, hardness, or softness of a contour or shadow edge.
Edge: The place where two pieces of paint meet. Edges are simplified into three types, hard, soft, and lost.
Form: THe visible volume or configuration of a subject. The specific roundness of an object for instance the human body expression by its surface and anatomy.
Naturalistic: Created to replicate what is observed in nature. Derived from personal observation of nature, and attempting to convey it very accurately.
Turning the form: Arranging the values in a painting or drawing so as to express the roundness of a subject.
Grisaille: The method we used in the beginning - painting in black, white, and raw umber.
Monochromatic: Containing or using only one color (as in an underpainting when only using raw umber).
Unity of light (shadow): The clear separation between light and shadow. This separation can be observed when squinting while looking at a subject, or glancing at it in a black mirror.
Key: The interpreted relationships of values, in a drawing or painting, taken from observing the whole subject/picture plane.
Visual impression: The fall of light on a subject which can be well observed while squinting.
Gesture: The movement of the figure or form. A change in direction that can be conveyed through curves and angles. A straight line alone has no inherent gesture. Two connected lines going in different directions have a gesture. A curve represents this. The greater the arc and the bigger the change in direction the stronger the gesture. This can be represented using three lines, a straight, C curve, and an S curve.
Design: The interpretation of the underlying structure of nature as expressed through line and shape, something we consider constantly while constructing a drawing/painting.
Light effect: Created by an appropriate contrast relationship between light and dark values in a drawing/ painting.
Chroma: Purity or intensity of color.
Hue: The identity of a color in the spectrum or color wheel.
Structural symmetry: Where the forms of the body, particularly the head and torso are the same on both sides, when split down the middle. For example the features of the face line up on a horizontal access, and are the same distance from the center of the face. If you were to put a line down the center, one side should mirror the other. Structural symmetry becomes more complicated as when the object turns the symmetry exists in the perspective. Structural Symmetry is the tracking and arranging according to the symmetry and perspective of the object.
Enough with text, here comes the process:
1 - Set up you stuff, study your subject.
2 - Block in the overall structure in charcoal.
3 - Block in the overall structure in Grisaille
4 - Paint the background for a better overall view of the picture.
5 - Mix flesh tones and dig in :)
6 - Establish shadow, mid tones and highlights. All the time try to get the proportions right.
7 - Keep on working and think of the face as an head - it is almost a ball-shape, round of the edges!
8 - Work your way from overall structure and color to finer and finer details.
9 - Finished. I can see lots of error when I watch the final painting and compare with the subject, but consider this was one of my first oil paintings and the model was set 5 meters away so I could not see any details
My pallet:
And please take a look at my Steemit introduction post below! :)
Have a great day!
Jnart, this is a fantastic post with a TON of value. I hope it gets upvoted much higher. I am a professional portrait painter who works in acrylic, and even though this is oil painting being demonstrated, it will be very useful for me and others, especially the art terminology. I teach classes in my studio and online as well, but I am always striving to perfect my craft.
You did a great job capturing the overall features of the model. I like the contrast between the man and the background as well as the cooler tones in his face. How long did this take?
Also, I noticed you did a grisaille before blocking in the flesh tones. Did you glaze the flesh tones in with a medium of some sort or did you work them in opaque? I've always wondered at why a person would do a grisaille first; it seems redundant. Why wouldn't you just block in the values with the appropriate color and save a step? I'm coming at this with an attitude to learn. I'm just wondering what the reasoning is.
Anyway, love this post and excellent painting you produced. Upvoted and resteemed! One last thing, may I have your permission to share this with my online painting students if I give you credit and link back to your post here on Steemit? Thanks!
I'm so glad to hear his! Sometimes I think of attending a professional art-school but then I always say to myself - the internet is the new art-school! I will keep on checking out your stuff as well. You are partly doing what I want to do in the future, great inspiration!
It took quite some time, I think it was four days with 4-6 painting hours a day.
Did you glaze the flesh tones in with a medium of some sort or did you work them in opaque? I worked opaque on top. The purpose of the grisaille was to establish value and have a solid underpainting. I also thought it was a little bit time-wasting. But I guess it is easier to match the grisaille with the sketch, otherwise you maybe get lost in details quicker. I am far from good at this compared to the teacher so there are probably other reasons too.
Absolutely, share the content as you please. I might post a second one where I explain even more.
Thanks for getting back, Jnart, and answering my questions. I will share this post with my network and link it back here. It's great to see your post got upvoted higher--it's deserving of it! Have a blessed day.
I would upvote, but you won't get the benefits of the rewards because I am too late. Curse HF19! However, I think you will likely receive upvotes on newer material. ;-)
amazing. you use water paints ?
It is made in oil. The best for blending color without stress and get the full spectra of value from white to pitch black which can be hard in watercolor. The old masters used it, yet they did not have plastic ;)
I was very bad artist :D i went for architectural engineering admission.
they asked us to create a portrait :D
i created flowers :D they didn't let me in . i am happy cause i became a Computer Scientist
Mm, so good, and good shown steps, thank you a lot :)
Thank you for showing your appreciation. I get inspired to even better posts :)
this is just amazing @jnart ! thanks for sharing these great details. superupvoted cheers
Thank you!
awesome ! glad u got hit with curie =) well deserved
Thanks a lot, pure gold here.
Thank you!
Wow thats awesome, very delicate process
Thank you so much!
Oil painting looks great @jnart Keep up the good work.
Thank you!
Good job and thank you for taking the time for such a detailed step-by-step breakdown :)
I just resteemed it at the Steemit Gallery of Art.
Find out more about it here and take a look at the ongoing exhibition here :)
Thank you! I'll check it out!
I finally included your painting in the SGoA_Ex#2, the second SGoA Exhibition. Come and have a look :) Good luck!
Great painting. I love the lighting and the shadows! Great work :)
Thank you!