A Painting A Day

I just started this one last weekend. I wanted to make this more abstract - but I feel like I'm putting too much detail in already. I'm going to try (very hard to do) to just finish the hands and the t-shirt and maybe do more to the background and call this one finished. But I am happy with how it's turning out so far.

I've been working on this for several weeks. First I didn't realize how difficult it was going to be to work on the faces because they were so small ( I was doing this on a 12 x 24 canvas ) and I had to use very small brushes. I just couldn't get the level of detail I needed to get. I was trying to make it fun, with lots of color but somehow it just didn't turn out like I wanted.

Here's the photo I was working from:

 

I so want to be an expressionist, but I can't let go of my preconceived notions long enough to try. I started off wanting to do something different with this one - I started by changing the colors in their hair. I made Ian's hair have red tints and blue tints in Emily's. I wasn't really pleased with the result so went back and tried to correct it as much as possible. You can still see the tints.

I had to get additional shots of Ian from the side because the positioning of the bodies in the original picture was awkward looking. I also had a lot of trouble capturing the likeness of Emily. I felt like Dylan was pretty good, Ian was ok (I exaggerated the size of his glasses), but just couldn't really get Emily right. Maybe it was the challenge of her mouth open? Dylans arm and hand are slightly oversized - I may still change that. The hands were a challenge - and the folds of the fabric. In the original photo Ian is wearing a plaid shirt. I wasn't up for the tediousness of painting plaid, so changed it.

Painting really is a journey. I read something interesting today about why people paint self portraits. The author said to painting yourself is a journey in self discovery, and only by painting yourself can you know yourself. I liked that. Maybe some day I will do one.

The painting still looks unfinished to me, and all my paintings seem to be so pastel.  I am working with oils - I think I am just afraid to use dark color. I did get a little more adventurous and use a darker colors on Dylans shirt and in Emilys hair. I couldn't find any fixative, so my rough pencil drawing bled through while I was painting.  I started using a piece of glass as a mixing board - need to cut a white foam board to go underneath it. On colors, I have a flesh tone but hardly used it - it was too orange. I didn't premix the colors, and instead mixed them on the canvas while painting. The colors were simple - white, red, blue, and brown ochre on the faces. I think in the future I should mix on the glass board instead of on the canvas. I probably should have used more yellow in the skin tones. The skin tones are so different on each person. Altogether I probably spent about 15 hours on this painting. I haven't done anything like this - ever. I used to do pencil portraits in high school, and dabbled a little in painting - but was so afraid of color. I think I still am - I'm just too damn old to care!

I started to sketch this with charcoal, and then decided it would be better to paint it.