First Portrait

Wednesday Drawing Classes are starting oil painting portraits. Yes, painting in oils. First up is to select a large, 8x10 photo to use as a reference. Then make several black & White copies. Cheap, copier copies that can be drawn on.

 

So, how do you go about this? There are about as many different approaches to portraiture as there are artists. No one is “correct”. The right approach is the one that gives you the results you want. Since these portraits are for my drawing class, a beginner class with the emphasis on realism, we are taking a classic, academic approach and will use the skills learned already in drawing realistically. 

 

Having gone over the basic materials needed, we will beginning by blocking in the basic shapes. There are a lot of ways to transfer the image to the canvas, but for this we are going to do a rough block in with oil paints thinned to ink like consistency and doing a basic block in.

 

Using the black & white copy, we will use straight lines to define the general, gross shape of the image. Also, we will play around with placement. This can be done with simple cut outs. Once we know where we want the image, we can start by fining a starting point on the reference copy, and a corresponding reference point on the canvas. All other measurements will work from this point.

 

For this first project, we will attempt to draw/block in the head the same size as the photo reference. This will make later comparisons to the reference easier.

 

The first block in is a rough block in, for placement and overall size. We will locate the major features, the angle of the head, location and angle of the eyes, nose, mouth, and if visible the ears. 

 

Because of the demands of teaching this class, I will be working on more than one painting at time. Hope I can keep them up!