Tuesday Night Portrait

This is from last Tuesday's drawing session (I have gotten a bit behind lately!) Generally a successful portrait painting. Every once in a while there is a quality about the finished painting that really captures the quality of light on a subject. It is watercolour's most attractive quality even though (for me) it doesn't happen very often.

October Afternoon

I am very happy with this painting. I think that it has a good composition and quite strong colours. What is interesting is that it is based on a photograph which I took in an area north of Toronto which is slated to become a new airport for the city. This is a mixed use area in which farmland was gradually being turned into suburbia. Because this land was taken over to build an airport and then the process stalled it is full of abandoned suburban homes as well as farms that have either been abandoned or worked by absentee or inhabited until a final decision is made.

I have used these photos before, but since this one was painted to be a different season from that in which the photo was taken, I used it as reference rather than trying to copy it and as a result it seems to be more successful.

This is the latest portrait painting from my Tuesday night figure and portrait group. As you can see, the proportions are off. The body is too small for the head. The model was thin with a slight build and I may have been too concerned with that. This kind of problem is quite common when painting from life within a limited time and often hard to detect until "finished." As far as I am concerned this is a learning process; an attempt to get more skilled in capturing the likeness, attitude, character, etc. If I get a good one I am happy, but a bad one doesn't bother me much. They can all be frustrating and difficult, both good and bad!

My solution here is "creative cropping" which I look at as a last resort because it is kind of composing the picture at the end, rather than at the beginning.

Wednesday Night Portrait

I also belong to another figure drawing group that meets on Wednesday night. This painting was from last week. This group is different in that the poses are shorter. We start with a series of 1 or 2 minute poses and work up to longer ones, generally not longer than 20 minutes. I will draw the shorter poses in pencil and then switch to watercolour for the longer ones, although I have been trying to work on my drawing more lately.

Tuesday Night Portrait

You win some, you lose some!

This is from last week's session; I've done better.

It is interesting that some look good at the time you are doing them and some don't and then when you look back at them, it is often the reverse.

Portrait

This is another portrait painted at my regular Tuesday evening session.

As I was just starting out to draw the figure I noticed how the line of the shirt front (where it buttons) makes a nice subtle curve which starts at the top of the head and follows down the neck and down the shirt.

This forms a good gesture line for the portrait.

Here is my latest painting from a regular Tuesday night figure group.