W.I.P.- Oil Paint Portrait I Am Working On

Trying to make it as an artist means constantly hustling and cultivating multiple streams of income. This is why I think that the Steemit community is a great opportunity. It is one more way I can make new connections and get paid to explore life and do the things I love.

While I am trying new options for other streams of income, my biggest chunk of income comes from commissions. People hire me, usually, to paint loved ones (Dogs, children, grandchildren, significant others, etc.) for holidays, birthdays, or no reason at all. If you are looking for someone to paint a portrait for you then click here. It is always a fun challenge trying to look at just a few photos of someone and trying to capture their essence and likeness.

The commission I am currently working on is a portrait for a friend and neighbor, of his daughter. It is oil paint on an 11" x 14" canvas board. Here is the painting, so far, alongside the reference photo that I worked with. Let me know how I'm doing.

Scratching It In

In this stage I am just using burnt umber thinned down with a little turpentine to draw out, or in this case, bring out my drawing. This is all about getting everything in it's proper place. Before this step I covered the canvas in thinned out burnt umber, and lightened one half of the canvas.

Putting Together Main Features

In this stage I am putting in the base color and values of high interest areas. Since the shape and location of these features is paramount in painting an accurate likeness I tend to start here and build the planes of the face around them. Just making sure everything is tied down for the trip so to speak.

Blocking in The Shadows

Here the goal is to start with darks and lay in the planes of the face as you cover the canvas.

Get Rid of the Canvas

Just like it sounds, get the canvas covered in the general area being worked in. It helps make more accurate color and value judgments.

Refining Forms and Adding Highlights

Blocking in the Darks for the Hair

Breaking it Up

This step is building up form in all of the little abstract shapes and patterns that are in the hair to break up the dark masses.

Overall Refinements

Making corrections, cleaning it up

Rough Cut

While I am painting I don't generally stop to set up the appropriate lighting for Photographing the art. I use my phone and whatever light is available at my easel, usually at night, so sorry if these aren't quality images. If nobody is a fan of the raw uncut images here I can crop them in the future to be more presentable. I just figured this way seems more fitting for the context.

If I do more of this type of post I might do the progress shots in animation form instead of having to scroll through them.

The creative process is so fluid. An awareness of the constantly changing environment and an open mind to the potential of each new mark is key to creating art that has character. Most of the time, my favorite parts of paintings are the things that just happen along the way. An openness to the happenings of the process, in my opinion, is the thing that separates simple recording of images from making art.

Departure From the Original Goal

The character of the paint and the painting really started to shine through as I was refining the face and the hair. As I began to put the background color and texture in to test how the green and blue would look, I found myself very attached to the way that the unfilled background was broken by these test patches of green and blue.

Also, through most of the painting I found myself interested in the little bit of outline around the face that was left over, peeking through, from the original drawing. So I decided to draw the outline back around the face, even though I was concerned at first that I might muck up the whole painting trying this. While it ended up losing a bit of the sense of atmosphere that was there i feel like it really emboldened the painting as a whole.

While I feel like it is a done piece I still have to check in with the client to figure out if it is what he wants. Assuming he says yes then this project is done. If not I will polish it all up.

If you want to hire me for your project, but aren't sure where to start, I have created a page to help with that here. It gives a general explanation of how the commission process works, ballpark pricing formulas, and will give you a better idea of what to expect and what questions to ask when commissioning a piece. Be sure to check out the FAQs section at the bottom of the page.

I get busy working on projects and it is hard to find time to write up a post. I thought I would try to do a WIP post. If I do these in the future they might be geared more to the image aspect than any writing. What would you like to see/read? Please let me know what you think in the comments section.