Love doing these animals especially the parrot. I’ve never done a parrot or any bird. But I painted them like I paint the furry animals, close attention to the structure of their heads and to the textures. With Kukla, I used lift the color with semi-dry stiff brush to create the ends of the feathers. It was a great challenge!
To commission a portrait visit my Etsy shop. I offered pet portraits in either oils or watercolors.
The series Portrait Artist of the Year, a portrait artist competition held in Britain, decided to do a virtual competition on Facebook. The annual competition is a delight to watch where artists paints celebrity models in rounds to eventually win a commission to paint a prominent celebrity. For the virtual competition there was a model a week. Past winners of the competition are invited to paint the prominent model. Facebook viewers are invited to paint along to work from a screen shot and Then submit their portraits to be pick for first, second or third place winner for that week.
I was delighted to participate. I definitely got my practice in. So below are 8 of the 9 people painted. I used a limited palette of titanium white, yellow ochre, cadmium red and ivory black. Though sometime I would used burnt umber and ultramarine blue to make black. I discovered that when mixing the black this way I can make it as cool or warm when I needed it. It was a good time to experiment with different palette arrangements.
These paintings were done back in 2015 and 2016 when I was often attending the open sessions at Patris Studio. I have to say they are not as bad as I thought. But I do need to go back and painting portraits again. Maybe that would be one of my New Year’s resolution.
Available for purchase in my Etsy shop.
Just finished up another commission for Christmas. Commission works accepted until the end of September 30th.
Underpainting
I finally was able to attend an open session at Patris Studio. It was good to be there drawing and painting from life. I started off with a pencil drawing which took about an hour. The next two hours was painting in oils with the Zorn limited palette – titanium white, ivory black, cadmium red and yellow ochre.
The last painting was done at home from a photo.
Just finished commissions from one client. All except one is 6 x 6 inches on stretched cotton canvas. I had been doing preliminaries drawings before going onto canvases. Then on canvas I did a grisalle with transparent red oxide for values. I found by doing these preliminary drawings and grisalles, it helps with the painting process.
Interested in a commission done for your pet click to go to my Etsy shop.
I just finished a watercolor portrait for an internet friend in Finland. The original painting is up for sale in my Etsy shop.
In Day 2, Oliver demonstrated with a charcoal pencil.
Oliver shows some of charcoal pencils on toned paper.
In the afternoon we worked on toned paper. But first we did some 10 minutes warm-ups on Strathmore drawing paper. The toned paper we use Canson Tientes. Oliver suggested used the smooth side for women and children’s portraits. The textured size best for men.
Spraying is not needed for charcoal pencils. Only for vine charcoal drawings.
Marlene Lee Art 