I just started this portrait of Three Men yesterday. Initially I made the mistake of starting the painting by drawing with a charcoal pencil, but quickly thought I had made a mistake. I cleaned up the canvas and just went into it with yellow ocre and lots of mineral spirits--like in the old days--a large brush and a rag. I want this portrait rough--a range of thin to thick paint, runny washes to firm brush strokes--keep it loose and casual. Sap green, alzarin, burnt umbra, flake white--the absolutely right white for portraiture; it has no blue in it--cadmium yellow medium are all that's on the palette so far this second day of painting. Alternating between drawing and correcting is my usual procedure.
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| This is Only Organic taken with no flash (ever) in open shade with a SE exposure. It's pale, but the colors are accurate. |
In the computer, again using my favorite--my only available Jasc Picture Album Adjustment tool-- the following adjustments were made on each photograph: 1) Quick fix; 2)Color Stretch; 3) Less Exposure; 4)More Vividness; 5) Less sharpness; 6) More Exposure. I chose the camera's landscape setting because of one sentence under the portraiture setting description in the manual--portraiture gives a nice "warm effect". That warm effect is exactly what I didn't like in the Steve photographs. For me, this procedure
seems to be it. I am satisfied.
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| Using the procedure I described, this is Only Organic with accurate coloration. I chose this painting because it had the primaries as well as a variety of gray washes. |
Impressive, Lynn. A bit too technical for me; but I love your attitude ... 'Second Best Won't Do!'
ReplyDeleteWhat can I tell you? I'm a bull dog..a pit bull...I'm just plain dogged when in pursuit of something I think is important. Even though I had told my buyer, before I showed her the watercolor, she was not obligated to buy it, she might have felt obligated. She is a friend of mine. We do lunch often. Even though I wouldn't have minded her backing out at all, she might have felt that doing so would jeopardize our friendship. The situation was a sticky wicket. Fixing the photographic inaccuracy was important. I don't want that to happen again.
DeleteWow!
ReplyDeleteThanks Jean. With this one I feel I can be myself and let go. I'm totally relaxed--and loving oils.
DeleteHola linda, siempre aprendo de tus experimentos. Saludos :)
ReplyDeleteExperimenting Sonia is the path to almost perfect. LOL. Seriously, we really have to understand how our cameras work--and how our photograph adjustment programs work with our cameras to get the best out of both.
DeleteYou went all the way Linda...I'm impressed ! And a question...why was it a mistake to draw with a charcoal pencil ? I know it is a frequent procedure , so I am curious about your idea :-)
ReplyDeleteFirst, a set drawing in charcoal or red pencil, would have ended up being too tight. I didn't want that. Second, charcoal needs to be fixed, if you don't want the paint tainted with the black dust. I don't like the way paint goes over fixative. So I erased the canvas, scrubbed it, let it dry thoroughly and picked up my brush and drew like I always did, with the paint thinned with a lot of mineral spirits. I learned to paint that way way back then. I always started with a monochromatic value study constantly making corrections.
DeleteYour "Three Men" is coming along well. Wow, do they ever look like you!
ReplyDeleteAnd, my tenacious little terrier, you found a great way to get the true colors on the computer!! BIG KUDOS to you!!!
Well, we'll see. I really suspect that each painting might need a slightly different twist depending on the dominate colors. All I really learned was that my camera's landscape setting, got truer colors when the photo was transferred to computer.
DeleteI'm having a good time with it. But I'm waiting for one of my guys to balk at being pictured on the blog as I get closer to achieving a likeness.