Exercise: Conveying Character

Portrait of Paul

Skipping a couple of exercises here – can’t decide what to do for the second portrait (will be a self-portrait again!) and also the creating mood and atmosphere exercises, so thought I would move on to this one while I procrastinate on the others!

For this exercise we are asked to convey character through facial expression.  I remembered seeing a self-portrait by my brother-in-law (a keen photographer) had taken of himself so I asked him if I could use it.  In our conversation, I explained to him why I had chosen that photo, the intense look he was giving to the camera and the fact I thought it would convey the emotion/mood of “intense” very well.  He said to me that he had taken this photo on the day he was laid off from his job and was feeling very let down.  He himself used the word “stark” to describe this portrait of himself so I think we are both more or less on the same wavelength here.

I also wanted to complete a portrait of a man because I think the planes of the face are usually stronger and more defined than a female face. 

I was inspired by Colin Davidson’s portrait recently viewed at the BP portrait awards.  As described previously, this painting had a lot of texture in it – scratching back for the hair/beard, thickly applied paint and visible brushstrokes and dribbled paint. 

My notes/plan pre- painting were as follows:

Colour – Light Red/Ultramarine/White.  I read about this colour combination in an art magazine (possibly Artist & Illustrator but can’t now find copy).  It was suggested that this was a good colour combination to explore the possibilities of warm/cool temperature contrasts within a limited palette so I decided to try this out.

As stated in my first self-portrait, I felt it was important to continue working tonally until I am more practiced at portraiture, so using a limited palette here would be a good way to move into colour.  I also wanted to use a limited palette because it is a very strong image, and so I felt I needed to work tonally to create the necessary impact.

Created a palette of:

• Indian Red plus white – gradated tones for lights
• Indian Red plus ultramarine – gradated tones for darks (browns through to dark blue)
• Indian Red plus ultramarine plus white – this gave some very interesting neutral tones, almost mauve / lilac blues which should prove good for cool tones and shadows.

Paint application – I want paint to be an important part of this portrait by creating surface texture.  Initial thoughts are to use dry paint and not to blend to create distinctive brush marks (one idea is to use acrylic structure gel underneath to create texture – save time on using thick oils & drying time).  Also like the idea of glazing/rubbing paint into thick brushmarks to create shadow detail)

I want to create directional brushstrokes to emphasis the planes of the face (ie horizontal on forehead, vertical on cheeks).  Eyes should be gentle and realistic – careful note of highlights.

Ground colour – after creating the palette I tested a few shades as a ground.  It was a close decision between a mid-toned Indian Red & White, and the more neutral blue-grey of the Indian Red plus Ultramarine plus white.  Eventually, I decided on the cooler blue/grey tone for the ground as I felt it would create a cooler overall feel to the painting and also, the darker flesh tones created by the Indian Red were more vibrant against the blue.

No prep photos for this one because, after painting the ground in the blue/grey tone and drawing the image, I completed the painting to the stage below in one sitting (approx. 3 hours):

The only area which needs work, I think, are the eyes which need much more detail to be very realistic but obviously I will have to wait for the paint to dry before attempting the finer detail.

In my original notes, I was going to try for more texture in the paint, but I actually like the image as it is.  My aim here was to get the basic colours/tones in to a stage I was happy with, and then add more texture later – it may be that I still will, either by palette knife/thick application with a rough brush, or even using texture gel.  However, by applying the paint more loosely, I feel I have already achieved my aim of the paint being an important part of the piece – the brushstrokes are loose and visible, you can see each brushstroke.

One thing I was surprised about was how much of the blue range I used – I anticipated using much more of the light red mixes, but only really used the lightest four shades, plus the red darkened with blue for the loose background.  I used the red + ultramarine + white mixes a lot here, as I found them very good for the shadows and darker areas without adding too much colour. 

I will need to add more of the pink tones onto the body – while the blue is a good shadow shade, I think at present it is too much of a contrast with the face so will have another think about that.