Self portrait study

Whenever I feel I need to sharpen my brush, I look at myself in the mirror and study painting with my face for two hours or three hours of limited time frame like violinists practicing scales and difficult passages.

For this practice, I use as low quality of brushes, size 2, 4 and 6, as possible and student grade of paints.

   

As usual, I started tonal drawing using raw umber on 9"x 12" cotton canvas pads.

      

Portrait of Martina

I had a very special class for a week this summer with Martina flying from Berlin Germany.

She found me through online last year and flew to Santa Fe hoping  that she could learn oil portrait from me.

We set up the schedule and performed very intensive portrait class from tonal sketch to final with oil.

She understood well what I taught about how to render the anatomical shape with values and color temperatures according to the lights and angles.

I enjoyed to teach her.

Worrior D 2 Demonstration

                                                 

Portrait Demo, Ulrich

The model, Ulrich, is German American. He is fluent in English, Spanish and German.

He volunteered to pose for class with Martina.

I didn't use a single light source, instead used a florescent light from the ceiling.

It was a little hard to capture the subtle value and color temperature, but I studied subtle cool color temperature on his face and luminous facial planes.

Tonal sketch on primary wash.

                     I forgot to take pictures proceed because I was rushing to completing the paining.

Completed in 2 and half hour.