January 9, 2010 - Day 152

Acrylic on 140lb Aquarelle watercolor paper

I am pretty happy with this painting on a whole. I did have problems with the right cheek area. I painted it too dark originally and wasn't able to blend it into the rest of the face. I tried painting over it with white with a touch of the brown but it didn't work very well. The white really does add a chalkiness to the painting.

Oh well, live and learn. Now I know to start the blush area much lighter.

January 8, 2010 - Day 151

Acrylic on 140lb Aquarelle watercolor paper

Today's painting worked much better than yesterday. I started with the darks today and then added the lights. Yesterday I forgot to reserve the light areas while I worked on the shadows and that lessened the contrast and caused me to overwork the painting.

I realized today that with the acrylics I can combine the transparency of watercolor that I love with the ability to paint light over dark. Very liquid acrylic paint works in a similar way to watercolor. The same luminosity can be achieved but it is more forgiving of mistakes.

It is funny. I knew that acrylics could be used in layers like watercolors but I never really clued in on how I could use that for my paintings. Intellectually I knew it but emotionally I wasn't connected to it in any way. This opens up whole new worlds of possibility for me. There is an idea niggling around in the back of my mind of somehow combining watercolor and acrylic techniques in the same painting. It will be interesting to experiment further with this in the future and see where it leads.

I wonder what it would look like if I did the hair and clothes with thick acrylic paint but did the face and background using very thin layers of acrylic? Hmmmm.

January 7, 2010 - Day 150

Acrylic on 140lb Aquarelle watercolor paper

I painted the monochromatic painting first today. I painted the color painting after I got the idea to do a complete underpainting in purple and layer glazes of color over top. Both of these paintings were SUPPOSE to be Paul Gross but I wasn't able to capture his likeness at all.

January 6, 2010 - Day 149

Acrylic on 140lb Aquarelle watercolor paper

I am ecstatic about the results that I am getting with the monochromatic portraits. I just can't believe that I created this! Like many people, I have spent most of my life suffering from very low self-esteem. I never thought that I had any real talent. I thought that the best that I could ever do would be create a "nice" painting. Yet, I look at this and I love it. There is nothing that I would change about it.

January 5, 2010 - Day 148

Acrylic on 140lb Aquarelle watercolor paper

Wow, that it was a lot easier doing this painting in one color rather than having to worry about correct skin tones. I really like this painting although I don't think I captured the likeness of Keanu Reeves.

January 4, 2010 - Day 147

Acrylic on 140 lb Aquarelle watercolor paper

Wow, this is really a challenge for me! It is very hard to paint a likeness of someone AND get the coloring right. I am thinking of maybe doing some monochrome portraits that way I can focus on the features and not worry about getting the skin tones right.

This was suppose to be Ali Larter from Heroes.

January 3, 2010 - Day 146

Acrylic on 140lb Aquarelle Watercolor paper

This is the first in a series of star portraits - or it is suppose to be anyways. The reason I chose to paint famous people is because I want to be able to accurately paint portraits. I think portraits are the hardest thing to paint because if you get any little thing wrong it won't look like the person that you are trying to paint. The end result may be beautiful but but it won't be recognizable as the subject.

I think I am having the same problem painting people as I did painting landscapes. With landscapes my mind kept saying "but trees are green and water is blue". With people, my mind keeps saying "skin is the color of those pencil crayons labelled flesh". I have a feeling that if I put some funky colors like blue, green or purple in the shadows that it would really make the portrait "pop".

By the way, this was suppose to be a painting of Halle Berry when she had short hair.