"An English Rose" 12 x 12 oil on canvas These last few days have been occupied off and on with several small (12 x 12) portraits. What makes them a challenge is neither the smiling eyes nor the crooked grin; it is the transparent skin she shares with other babies.
So I am patiently building a grissaille or value underpainting, and then glazing with primaries, hoping to end up with an underpainting which contains the whole range of colours. I'm trying to get under her skin, so to speak.
Yesterday she looked bruised, today she looks greenish, and the sweet girl will be positively garish by tomorrow. Then, with luck and a light touch, I hope to restore her porcelain complexion by tweaking the values and correcting colour. There's something of the tightrope walker in all of us portraitists.
So I am patiently building a grissaille or value underpainting, and then glazing with primaries, hoping to end up with an underpainting which contains the whole range of colours. I'm trying to get under her skin, so to speak.
Yesterday she looked bruised, today she looks greenish, and the sweet girl will be positively garish by tomorrow. Then, with luck and a light touch, I hope to restore her porcelain complexion by tweaking the values and correcting colour. There's something of the tightrope walker in all of us portraitists.
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