Watercolor on Arches cp 140lb, 9x12". Photo reference is Michael Scholl of Julia Kay's Portrait Party.
A Portrait A Day 16 - Kate
Watercolor and acrylic gel medium on Arches CP 140lb, 9x12". Interesting thing: Arches paper seems much softer after Canson Montval, much more absorbing (less sizing??) and more difficult to wipe or scrub paint off of.
The reference photo is Kate Larmuth of Julia Kay's Portrait Party.
Oh. And this was not a 30 minute painting, as you can probably tell.
Charlottetown City Hall, Virtual paintout August 2010
Well, my daily painting today was "unblogably bad" - to quote Genevieve of Summoning of the Muse. So I'll try again tomorrow and for now, here is something I forgot to post in August:
Crayon and watercolor on good ole yupo, 7x10" or so. The location is in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island (Canada).
A Portrait A Day 15 - Ken Meyer Jr
Watercolor on Canson Montval CP 140lb, 9x12. Took me around 35 minutes, not counting a couple of breaks. The painting turned out very saturated and colorful and I had difficulties making the image match the painting. This should give a rough idea, though, of course, it's almost always better in person.
Ken Meyer Jr is an artist and illustrator I "met" through RedBubble.com. He sent me some pictures for my A Portrait A Day project and this is the interpretation of one of them. Check out Ken's website here.
A Portrait A Day 14 - Isabella
Watercolor on Canson Montval CP 140lb, 9x12". Isabella is a 7 year old girl I met at one of the Barstow Harvey House Market Days. She likes to make art, and yesterday she participated in the market as an artist. Take a look at her booth:
I think she pretty much sold out by the end of the day...Unlike me :) (we did make the space fee and the babysitter back, plus a little more that we spent on food and stuff). I bought one of her paintings, too. It depicts Joseph wearing his multicolored robe while his mean brothers sneer at him. I'll put it up in Elijah's room.
More posts are coming, I promise :). Life with a 1 year old has been a little hectic recently - but I'm still sticking to my 206-portraits plan. After doing it for two weeks, however, I realized that 30-minute rule does not work for me very well. I usually end up spending an extra 10-20 minutes getting the painting where I want it to be. So, my new time limit is an hour or less. I still think it's important to keep an eye on the clock for these quick studies, since one of my goals is to get faster.
A Portrait a Day - self-portrait
Watercolor and watercolor sticks on Canson Montval CP 140 lb, 9x12". Painted from life in around 35 mins; the beeeauuutiful bespectacled model is yours truly :D.
A Portrait A Day 12 - Sveta
Didn't get around to posting this one yesterday, so here it goes. Painted from a photo of my cousin's wife Sveta, but I definitely didn't do her smiling face justice. Spent over an hour trying to make it work and still not happy with it. I'll call it a "learning experience" and count towards those 1000 bad paintings that you are supposed to get out of your system before you get to the good stuff ;)
Watercolor on Canson Montval CP 140lb, 9x12" (running out of those...will switch to Arches soon).
Oh, and today is my birthday, so I will celebrate by painting your humble servant (myself)!
A Portrait A Day 11 - Tim Clary
Watercolor and watercolor sticks on Canson Montval CP 140lb, 9x12". Reference photo: Tim Clary from Julia Kay's Portrait Party. Tim's blog here: http://sketchhatch.blogspot.com/
Not sure his eyes are green, the photo was black-and white ;). I went with dark brown/black at first, but somehow, it wasn't very expressive.
A Portrait A Day 10 - Gloria
Watercolor and watercolor sticks on Canson Montval CP 140lb, 9x12". Painted from a black and white picture of my friend Gloria (who doesn't like it when people call her Grace) that I took during my film photography class at Berkeley. I met her through a Christians on Campus club and she was one of the highlights of my life at the school.
A portrait a day 9 - Esther
Yes, I know there was no post yesterday. That's because I didn't paint on Friday! And I can completely blame it on my husband, that was all his fault. I set everything up for painting and was about to begin when he asked me if I could wait a little. So I did. Then he told me I had an appointment and had to go somewhere. I had no clue what he was talking about but took the car keys and followed the directions from the GPS. When I got to the place, the first thing I saw was a huge banner with big red letters spelling "MASSAGE" and then "Day Spa Jolie" sign on the building... I had a full body treatment waiting for me, and it was wonderful. I felt maybe not like a princess but at least a duchess. :) And imagine my joy when I came back home and the dinner was ready (made from scratch! So much for his attempts to make me believe he can't cook! ), the house cleaned, and the baby washed and fed. Oh, and flowers! And since my birthday is not until Thursday the 16th, all this was a big and very pleasant surprise. Aaah...I love my husband :)
So now I have a missed portrait to make up for. The one I painted yesterday is Esther, another friend of Sandra's:
Watercolor, watercolor sticks, and gesso on Canson Montval CP 140lb, 9x12. No drawing, as usual with these quick paintings. Esther is 96. This is my first time painting an older person, and I would love to do more!
A portrait a day 8 - Grandpa George
So, who is this good-looking dude? An American superhero? Nope. A hero of the Soviet revolution? Closer. Meet my grandpa Georgy Agapov. I don't know much about him. He died when my mom was 6 and she rarely mentioned him at all.
Watercolor on Canson Montval CP 140lb, 9x12". A video of the painting process is coming soon!
A portrait a day 7 - Kiera on the swing
Watercolor and AJ watercolor sticks on Canson Montval CP 140lb, 9x12". Reference photo is the daughter of Sandra's friends (which means somebody actually did send me a photo to work from! ;)). It is so much more interesting than browsing through pictures of complete strangers. So send me your photos please! :)
Working on this one was a bit hard. I hardly ever do faces expressing a strong emotion and this was a reminder that I need to do more of them. I think the girl looks more scared than happy in my painting... And I can't even put my finger on what exactly is wrong. Maybe I'll do a drawing next time - but then it wouldn't be one of my 30 (35 or 40 in this case) minute portraits anymore.
A Portrait A Day 6 - Angela (using gel medium with watercolor)
Watercolor on Canson Montval CP 140lb, treated with acrylic gloss gel medium in some areas. 9x12". Photo reference: Angela from Julia Kay's Portrait Party.
For those interested to know what "treated with acrylic gloss gel medium" means, here is what happened. After I decided on the composition, I wanted some extra texture in her hair. I accomplished that by taking some gel medium and brushing it on the blank sheet of paper with a 1" bristle brush. You can see the lines in the upper and lower left and grain throughout the painting. The lines are the result of a little more medium on the brush; the grain effect happens when you drag an almost dry brush across the paper and the medium catches only the very top of the paper grain.
I uploaded a larger than usual image for you to see the texture close-up. Needless to say, I would be very upset if somebody used this image for their own commercial purposes. So don't :).
A portrait a day 5 - Himba woman
Watercolor on Canson Montval CP 140lb. No drawing. Took me around 40 minutes total, with a lot of distractions and interruptions. I REALLY do not appreciate being distracted when I paint :(
Reference image is a fantastic photo by Patrick Hedges from WetCanvas reference library. I wasn't quite able to capture her expression, but it was worth a try.
A Portrait a day 4 - Giorgio Bordin
Watercolor and watercolor stick (American Journey Andrew's Turquoise) on Canson Montval 140lb paper. 9x12". 25+5 minutes. I liked working with a watercolor stick here. I used it in between watercolor washes, while the paint was drying. Photo reference is Giorgio Bordin from Julia Kay's Portrait Party, a physician, photographer and artist all-in-one.
The photo was black-and-white - which is perfect for making colors up :)
A portrait a day - Day 3 - Mom
Watercolor on Canson Montval 140lb cold press paper, 9x12". 20+15 minutes.
The reference photo is my mom holding my baby son. I think she actually looks more like me here, but then - I kinda look like my mom ;). Not happy with the bottom half of her face...Kept going back to it and couldn't get it quite right. But like I said to my husband today, that's the advantage of a large project like this: I don't care too much about one painting out of 206. Even if I only get 1 out of 10 right, I will still have 20 good paintings in the end!
Can you use makeup brushes for painting?
Before writing this post, I did a google search about using makeup brushes for painting and almost all the results were actually about using painting brushes for makeup (some even claim it is cheaper). So let me tell you my story. After attempting a couple of half and full sheet paintings recently, I discovered that my 1 1/2 inch taklon (good-ish synthetic) brush was no longer coping when I wanted to cover a large area in paint and achieve a smooth wash. Nor was my #36 round brush (also synthetic). It logically followed that I need a big brush with good paint-holding capacity (i.e. natural hair). If you ever looked for one, you know that even squirrel brushes start somewhere at $40 for 1" flat.
And so I had an idea. I was looking for a powder brush at Target when I saw "natural bristles" on the package. $5, worth a try? If it didn't work for watercolor, I still needed a powder brush, right? But it worked! It holds a bucket of water and paint and it is perfect for covering a large area. It even sort of holds a point when it's wet. So here is the brush (Studio Tools Powder Brush):
And a very quick wash on a half sheet (22x15"). I haven't even tried to make it smooth, hence some streaks. It is still a hundred times better than something I would get with my synthetic flat.
It took me maybe 5 loads total to cover the whole sheet - and not because the brush ran out of paint, but because I wanted to change colors or get more saturation. I was also afraid that the brush would shed profusely - but it didn't. It shed two hairs, and I can deal with that :)
A portrait a day - Day 2, Janis McElmurry
Watercolor on Canson Montval watercolor paper. 10+10+10 minutes. No drawing. Painted with a #36 round brush - which, I must admit, is a tad too big for a 9x12 sheet. Reference photo is Janis McElmurry from Julia Kay's Portrait Party. Do click on her name and check out her beautiful works!
Not incredibly pleased with the result : / Ah well. Tomorrow is a new day.
A portrait a day: Day 1 - Kai
Watercolor on Canson Montval watercolor paper. 20 + 10 minutes. No drawing - because it saves time and I can change things as I go vs. being stuck within the lines. Reference photo is Kai from Julia Kay's Portrait Party
A portrait a day
I had a fabulous idea yesterday: what if I paint one 30-minute portrait a day for a...week? I would have 7 paintings, 3.5 hours of painting practice, and possibly an unnoticeable improvement in my work. What if I do a month? 30 days x 30 minutes gives me 15 hours and 30 paintings! Tangible, eh? You can even do a show with 30 portraits. And then I was looking for a good number of days to commit to, between a month and a year. I found the number 206 - which is the number of bones in the human body. It ties nicely to my focus on portraits and will also remind me to turn to my anatomy book more often. Here is the math (and prepare to be impressed :) : 206 days x 30 minutes x 1 painting = 6180 minutes, or 103 hours of painting, and 206 portraits to show for it!
So here is the project: I will paint 1 portrait every day for the next 206 days!
I will post the results here. I also invite you to join me in on this journey if you would like to improve your painting/drawing skills or just need something to work on. The rules are these:
1. The project will run for 206 days. I started yesterday Sep 2nd and will continue until March 27, 2011. Feel free to join at any time and continue for however long you decide to. You can do every day like me or every week, or twice a week. It's up to you. For best results and for peer pressure, I recommend every day ;)
2. I will paint both from life and from photographs. Right now, my sources are my own photos, those of my friends and relatives, Julia Kay's Portrait Party, WetCanvas reference library, and Flickr Creative Commons. If you would like me to paint from your photo, please email it to watercoloredhands AT gmail.com
3. I can paint the same person more than once, use any technique and any size. If taking pictures is your thing, I welcome photography, too.
4. I intend to spend 30 minutes plus/minus 10 on each painting. I found that for watercolor, it makes sense to break the 30 minutes in 10-minute intervals to let the painting dry in between - and to give me an opportunity to step away and take a look at my work from a distance. Plus, I can rarely have 30 minutes straight of uninterrupted me-time. So, the idea is to spend 30 minutes total a day.
5. Art is not about following the rules, so...take it easy :)
Depending on how it goes, I might post other people's submissions here or include links, or maybe create a Flickr group. I also intend to take an occasional video of the painting process and post a mini-lesson on anatomy for artists.
And so, the question is, " Can you find 30 minutes a day to spend on something that is enjoyable, useful, and is NOT physical exercise?" ;)