To begin, I chose a photo to use as reference - this was trickier than expected, but eventually, I decided on one randomly shot by a friend while riding a commuter train! This helped with the colours and lightning, but as one could probably predict, I chose to change the background somewhat...Now, I've been painting a lot the past years, but mostly wargame miniatures, and the acrylics, techniques and subjects you use there range from "a little" to "somewhat" to "radically" different on the spectrum. It has, however, given me a lot better understanding of colours and painting, and I used that as well as I could.
With some help from the most excellent book "Color - A Course In Mastering The Art Of Mixing Colors" by Betty Edwards (which is dead tricky to get hold of, leading eventually to my borrowing of it as a .pdf) I believe I managed to take my painting up a notch.
Starting with big areas seemed like a good idea here, as well, and so I tried to figure out what underlying colour I should use for the face, before doing the same with the hair. After that, it was all about layering and highlights and shadows. The hair proved tricky indeed, but as the eyes accidentally became a wee bit larger than in the photo itself, they draw the most attention, and so I think I can stand the hair being a bit wonky.
Essentially, I worked in three phases - face, hair and details. The background was a stroke of randomness. I wanted some kind of texture, but nothing that detracted from the main subject of the painting. So some kind of tree-ish background would be all right, I thought, and keep it greyish (with different tones) to complement the eyes and be interesting enough, but not too much.
Sharp eyes will detect there being a wee bit of blue in the shadows, but there's some green too. If I was allowed to change only one thing I'd probably do something more about the eyebrows - I didn't paint in their areas with skin colour from the start, which I really ought to have done. I'm especially happy with stuff that disappears from taking a photo of it - all the smooth shadows and highlights, the details, the eyes and the lips, the teeth that aren't too white... Overall, yes, I am quite happy and satisfied with it. All wonkiness can be excused for now.
This portrait will probably not be for sale, but is still a good first picture for showing the versatility I am capable of.
/Ellie
