I love drawing and painting the human figure. I see these paintings as sculptures though really, they are prequels to carvings. I am wary of interpretation with these paintings. For me, in and of themselves they show the beautiful symmetry of the human form as it reflects the macrocosmic universe.
One of the most important things that has happened to me in all the years I have been portrait painting was going on a course run by Louis Smith in 2014, learning about glazing. Looking at his website I thought this would be about glazing as I understood it where you have a very thin translucent layer of paint and you go over a grey…
For this portrait as usual I used a canvas on board, and cropped it slightly to fit the subject. I started with a grisaille underpainting using Raw Umber and Titanium White and a little medium. I’m hovering between a straightforward Ivory Black and White underpainting, and other versions, mainly Raw or Burnt Umber and White. Burnt umber has a little more warmth. I’ve…
I’ve put the first colour glaze put on this portrait in 2 stressful hours! A few more glazes needed and I’ll add them over the coming days. I use M. Graham’s Walnut Alkyd medium which dries overnight – or to be extra sure within 48 hours. I enjoyed painting his ear and chuffed with the result! It felt good to achieve some economy of…
This is an early example and one of my first efforts at glazing over a grisaille underpainting, a portrait I painted of Dai, in stages. You can see the grid system I used to copy the original photograph reference. I don’t have a strict methodology of working from darkest darks to lightest lights that you can sometimes read about on academic portrait painting sites,…
First glaze done. Took about 90 minutes. I’ll adjust the colours and drawing as I go on #portrait #art #painting #oilpainting #glaze #grisaille #underpainting #contemporaryart #realism
Grisaille underpainting finished for another portrait. Ready for a glaze very soon. #devon #portraitpainting #glazing #underpainting #contemporaryart #art #portrait #oilpainting #oiloncanvas #painting
3rd glaze done. Still a few more needed #underpainting #grisaille #portrait #portraitpainting #oiloncanvas #art #painting #fineart #devon #glaze #contemporaryart #contemporaryrealism #oilpainting
Before and after #rosycheeks #babyboy #stars #oilpainting #portraitart #portraitpainting #grisaille #underpainting #glazing