Monet class work Lhanbryde.

Angela step one and almost completed.

 Yvonne step one and final work.

 Jane 1st stage

 Sandra drawing then work in progress of her watercolour painting.

 1st and almost final stage of Elaine's oil painting.

Alison work in progress.

Monet Portrait

The various stages of building up the Monet painting using an acrylic base and using oils for the other stages. I still have to repaint the left side of his face, his beard, hat and clothing. I will tone down his mouth and beard with a warm glaze using blue with violet.
Materials.
For my brushes I used Lawrence art supplies (online) down in Hove they are very good and post off an order the same day.  They do an artists quality value brush for oil/acrylic painting, these are super brushes with a nice spring yet solid enough to do large areas such as the background.  I used a variety of brush sizes, the smallest being 0 and 1 for the eye detail. I painted the eyes in the second stage using acrylic which speeds up the drying time, finishing off later with oils.
I used a few colours for the portrait, these are my personal choice. Naples yellow, raw umber, titanium white, Italian Brown-pink Lake by Old Holland, French ultramarine blue, Transparent oxide red, by Michael Harding, rose madder lake extra by old holland, manganese violet reddish by old holland, hansa yellow deep by Gamblin, Cromatic black (transparent) by gamblin. sap green optional.
The artist quality oil paints can be bought at Lawrence art supplies, I have had the paints for a long time, the pigment is very powerful so you only need a small bit for a painting. You can also use a fast drying white oil paint to speed up your overall painting time. Some paints take longer to dry and white is one of the longest to dry. You can mix the fast drying white in with your ordinary paints to increase the drying time. Gamblin do a beautiful fast drying oil paint in a few colours but they are expensive.

Portessie Girls Portrait work

Everyone is concentrating hard to get an accurate portrait. Two of the girls use the grid method to get an accurate portrait.  The portraits are drawn in charcoal mostly charcoal pencils which are useful for detail work. Layering and blending using a highlight pencil.

Works in progress

Here are some works in progress from the portrait painting class I am tutoring. During two classes. Everyone is working with great concentration and considering this is their first attempts they have done extremely well.

Portrait of her husband by Carole.

Author Katherine Thomas By Elaine.

Work in progress by Jane.

Scottish Colourist portrait by Jane.

William portraits

The class has been busy working on their William Portrait. For everyone this is the first time they are painting a portrait from a photograph. They are also new to drawing a portrait too so this is a big challenge.  They have done really well but most of all everyone has found the practice very interesting.

The photo of William

Elaine has captured a good likeness.

Strong work from Carole

Nicely painted, from Alison

Nicely painted, from Ivan

Expressionism by Gill

Thoughtful painting by Yvonne

A work in progress by Angela.

stage 4 portrait

Hard to get a decent photo of this with so much strong light coming in. I have worked some more on the hair and the shadows in the face and under the chin. Little bit more done on the back ground and also his clothes. The eyes are the biggest challenge and I am not happy with them. I don't have a small brush and have made changes which resulted in the left eye becoming lower with the reworking.  I will let it dry and order a small brush so I have a bit more control when painting the eyes.

oil portrait stages one to three

First stage of tinting the canvas sheet using acrylic burnt sienna, this dries quickly. I then sketched in the portrait using pencil.  This is an important part of the portrait as it is important to make sure the features are drawn correctly and are that you are happy with the drawing.

The second stage of the portrait shows the face tones being painted in using oil paints. Using burnt sienna, naples yellow and titanium white for the light areas. For the dark areas add burnt umber and dioxazine purple. The hair was burnt sienna and ultramarine blue for the really dark areas I added some purple. The background was titanium white, naples yellow with a little blue in areas, I wanted a soft toned background at this stage. His clothing at this stage is using sap green and ultramarine blue with a little titanium white for the blue areas.

I added eye brows, facial hair and eyes which will be more defined in the next stage. I added a bit more paint to the face to create more natural skin tones. I have still the eyes to be more clearly defined and the clothing and background to change.  I will also work some more on the hair. In the next stage I would like to achieve a painterly effect without aiming for realism. There is always a concern the painting may well become too overworked.  I will also say at this point that I had to make up my own burnt umber using ultramarine blue and burnt sienna. For the dioxazine purple I used burnt sienna, ultramarine blue and a touch of manganese violet. Often when we come to do a painting we can realise we are short of some of the colours. If you have your primary colours you can mix many colours.  I didn't use any medium for this exercise as the oil paints had enough oil in them to be able to spread well on the canvas sheet. I did use a variety of paint brush sizes.  I will post the next stage this week.