Work In Progress: Ruby Beach, Olympic National Park, Update 1

            A few years ago, for our 25^th anniversary, my wife and I took a trip to the northwest US and Canada – Washington state and British Columbia. The scenery is phenomenal – towering mountains, huge stands of Douglas Fir, mist enshrouded lakes of azure, thunderous waves breaking on rocky shores. We traveled throughout the region and took more than a thousand photos. There were beautiful landscapes everywhere we looked.

            Ruby Beach was one spot we visited. It’s located on the southwest coast of the Olympic Peninsula, and is one of the most well known and visited beaches along the Pacific coast. It gets its name from the reddish sand that sometimes gathers on the beach. The beach catches a large amount of driftwood, which only adds to the picturesque nature of the area. The iconic sea stacks that dot the shoreline make this beach perfect for a painting. The morning we visited the beach mist was still hanging just above the waves rolling in off the Pacific. For us, and the other people who walked the shoreline that morning, it was a picture out of a wonderful fantasy.

            While looking through the images from that day I came across a number of them that I felt would make a wonderful painting. I cropped a few of them in a variety of ways to get different views. On closer notice I found one that caught a group of people walking the beach, backlit by sunlit mist, and I zoomed in on that group a bit. They would provide a great focal point for the painting.

            I haven’t made any final decisions on the layout – or the medium - yet. I’ll discuss more of that in my next update. Included here are a few potential compositions.

Work In Progress: Raine, Update 7

Work In Progress: Raine, Update 7

Here is the completed Portrait of Raine. I made some adjustments and refinements in the painting. The area under the chin was darkened a little bit. I also made some small adjustments in the eyes, the width and size of the pupils. Small adjustments to the mouth. Also finished up the shirt. I purposely did not do a lot of detail work on the clothing, as I wanted to keep the emphasis on the face.

I found through the last two paintings that I like pastels very much and I probably will continue to work with pastels, especially pastel pencils more. It is a fabulous medium.

Work In Progress Updates: Raine, Update 6

Work In Progress: Raine, Update 6

            During the past week I’ve brought this portrait much closer to completion. Much of the face is finished, save for small adjustments. I also finished most of the hair, again, save for adjustments. Some of the blouse has been blocked in roughly and color has been added to the arm.

            The lights of the hair are predominantly CO 105 ivory and CO 692 golden ochre light. To get some of the darker shades I worked in CO 690 golden ochre, PP 180 raw umber and PP 182 brown ochre. CO 610 raw umber was worked into the darker shadows.

            The hair colors were basically stroked in with a sharp point. This gives the feel of individual hair, as can be seen in the detail photo of the pigtail. It takes more time to do it this way, as I had to rotate through colors to build up layers to cover the paper. However, it gives a more real appearance in the end. Care has to be taken to get the curves of the hair masses smooth. Sometimes I would lay the pencil point down and draw out a long stroke. Other times I would stroke in shorter lines. I went back and forth with the colors, adding in darker ones, then putting in lighter colors. In the end I carefully added in errant hairs in mostly light colors. These stray hairs blown away from the masses, and sometimes going in different directions, added to the realism. I did have check often my placement and make sure I didn’t overdo it.

            Working with CO 692 golden ochre light, PP 189 cinnamon, PP 132 light flesh, PP 283 burnt sienna and PP 180 raw umber I layered in the skin tones of the arm. The side of the pencil was used, with a light touch and a back and forth, as well a circular motion to build up color. I kept stepping back to look at the painting from a distance, assessing the general color and tone, then stepping back up and adding more color. In this way I slowly crept up on the color and tone so it appeared uniform.

            CO 670 burnt sienna was used to get the warm, reddish color of the crease of the arm as it joins the shoulder. The darker shadows were accomplished with PP 187 burnt ochre and CO 610 raw umber.

Just a note: there are a lot more photos on my website showing the progression to this stage.

Work In Progress: Raine, Update 5

Work In Progress: Raine, Update 5

            Over the past week I’ve continued to refine the facial features, building up color layers. I am not pushing very hard on the pastels. Very little pressure on the pencils. Laying in the color by very gently rubbing on the color, rather than rubbing in the color. This way I’m able to build up many, many layers. When I’m adding layers of color I hold the pencil at a very shallow angle. Actually rubbing on with the side of the point of the pencil. I use a mat knife to cut a very long point on the end of the pencil and keep it sharp with a single edge razor blade. I also work the pencil at steeper angles, also with a very sharp point, when I’m working details, but use the side of the pencil when blending larger areas where smoothness and gentle transition is necessary.

            The colors I’m using for the face are PP light flesh, brown ochre, burnt ochre, cinnamon, burnt carmine, caput mortuum and raw umber. I’ve made some adjustments to the eyelids also. To knock down the brightness on the right cheek I used some brown ochre.

            All along I’ve been looking at the face in isolation and wanted to get a feeling for the entire head, so I decided to place in the lights of the hair. At this point I’m not interested in detail, just block in the light masses. For this purpose I used CO 105 ivory and CO 692 golden ochre light.

More photos showing the progression in refinement can be found on my website.

Work In Progress: Raine, Update 4

            The next step in the process is the transfer to the final paper. Rather than blacken the back of the drawing I elected to blacken one side of a separate sheet of tracing paper and use it to do the transfer. There are instances where the line work on the front side is not clearly visible when the back is blackened, and since accuracy is necessary, I didn’t want to take a chance on being able to follow the line work, I used a separate sheet. I also didn’t want to go over existing line work just to make it darker. In case it became necessary to re-draw the head, I didn’t want to make unnecessary and possibly detrimental marks on a drawing. I might want to use it again in the future.

            Once the sheet of tracing paper was blackened on one side with an HB pencil, I slipped it between the drawing and the Sennelier pastel paper. I then carefully went over the lines with a ball point pen. The pen had no ink in it, so no lines were made on the drawing.

            The first step in the creation of this portrait was to produce a line drawing in pastel. I re-drew the lines carefully with a CO burnt sienna pastel pencil and added shading. At this stage the main shade masses are indicated generally and done lightly.

            The next step is stating the darks, mid tones and lights, again in general terms. I made no attempt to fill in solidly, just lightly and generally again. This step is to just map out the tones. I kept the darks a little lighter than in the photo, and the mid tones and lights a little lighter. That would enable me to go darker on the darks and lighter on the mid tones and lights as I progressed. This gave me some leeway in both directions.

First, I placed in the lighter of the darks in the face (shadows of the eye sockets, right lower cheek and chin, inner part of the left cheek, and neck) with CO burnt sienna. Next, I used CO bister very lightly for the darks in the hair and, even more lightly, on the lower part of the right cheek, the right eye socket and on the lower neck, near the blouse.

To give some definition to the mouth, I used CO bister for the interior of the mouth.

I will probably leave the remainder of the hair now until I get most or all of the face finished.

The mid tones begin at the edges of the shadows, separating the darks from the lights. I considered mid tones to be the forehead, outer part of the left cheek, upper right cheek near the nose, the nose and philtrum (area between the nose and upper lip), below the lower lip and down on to the chin, and the outer edge of the neck. For the base color of the mid tones I used FC light flesh.

The lights were done with FC ivory. Here I mapped out the far right side of Raine’s face and also the very edge of the neck just under the chin.

The lips were defined with FC medium flesh, FC dark red and FC ivory. The eyes were colored in with FC light ultramarine and FC chrome green opaque.

Now, I’ll go back to the face, re-state the darks, mid tones and lights and continue to refine the features.

1st Place, Nature 6, A Singular Art Community

Many thanks and much appreciation to the judges of A Singular Art Community for voting Osprey: Lovers Key, Florida, Number 1 in their Competition "Nature 6". Congratulations, also to the 1st Runner up Ryan OSullivan and Honorable mentions Sam Woodson, Lynne Wright, Vitalii, Boruch Lev, Alejandro del Valle, Fraser Mackay, Kelly Laura, Alyssa, Danielle Trudeau, and Jophel Botero Ybiosa.

Work in Progress: Raine, Update 3

Work In Progress: Raine, Update 3

Using the guidelines as I developed them in the last Update, I was able to rough in the facial features. At first I didn’t try for detail, just to get in the general shapes within the guides that I drew in. I was careful, though, to stay within those guides.

Doing the eyes first allowed me to use the inside and outside corners as additional reference points to draw in the wings of the nose. The center of the brow ridge also can serve as a good reference point, along with the top of the head and the center of the chin. The eye corners can also be used to check the mouth corners against the chin and head top reference points.

As I refined the facial features I slowly lightened or erased the guidelines.

The final stage of this rough in involved outlining the shaded areas. The shade forms also define the features of the face and can be used to check the placement of the eyes, nose and mouth. I found that with each stage in the refinement process, I made further adjustments in shape and placement of the features. To help draw in the shade outlines, I converted the original photo to black and white and strengthened the contrasts to simplify the shadow forms.

After the rough in, I went to work on details by looking closely at the reference photo and drawing them in. The more accurate I am in the pencil drawing, the better start I will have on the color stage. It’s a time consuming process for me, making little adjustments here and there, checking measurements and angles as I go, making additional adjustments. With each little change the likeness improves.

For me, and this particular portrait, the process of producing a pencil likeness was more difficult than others I have done. And I think the reason it was more difficult is that I’m not used to developing my pencil drawings on a vertical easel. I think I have a little less control of the pencil. I’m more used to working on an inclined drawing board, where I have more control and support. I had to redraw lines and check angles and distances more than I liked. Near the end of the refinement, I finally removed the drawing from the easel and finished it on my drawing board. Maybe with more practice I’ll get better at working vertically. I had no problems with the portrait of Peaches, and completed the whole portrait, from start to finish, on a vertical. Maybe I just wasn’t at my best this past week. Anyway, I had to work harder on Raine’s portrait.

Through continued checking of angles and distances I continued the adjustments and developed a good pencil likeness. The drawing is now ready for transfer to the final paper and I can begin the color stage.