Two portraits painted with directions

Again, this assignment was about painting in Expressionist style, two portraits. I believe that I failed that particular part of it. It simply does not come naturally to me. Part of the assignment was also to paint on 50x60 cm pieces, for which I purchased one canvas board and one canvas on frame.
The first photo here is of the painting that I made second. It is painted on canvas and I started out with a photo (of myself, taken on top of Dunadd Hill Fort) as reference, to get the general outlines of the face. I chose this particular one because the face is very tricky to get right in that angle. A mixture of black, blue, brown and some green and white was used for the outlines, and then there was a lot of blending and painting with larger, flat brushes, going on. I had immense help from the fact that my white is fairly opaque and could be used to "erase" areas where I made mistakes. There's a bit of a risk for that mouth to look like it is sneering, but again I take comfort in art being not finished merely because the artist puts the brush down - the viewer has part in it as well. I did not mean it to be sneering, I meant it to be sad, but there you go.
The second photo is the painting I painted first, and on a canvas board. Again, a photo (where Jonas is actually wearing a similar shirt) was used for reference, and I focused on the eyes, mostly. I am not very happy with either of these paintings, but they were good exercise. The shirt I am satisfied with, however; it looks good without being overworked. I started out in the same way as with the second painting, but had to make a lot more corrections. I could not get the measurements right, and it does seem to me now that I have a problem with drawing portraits and that it lies in the forehead-eye-nose-mouth and getting the same scale for all of them. This painting took two days to finish, but in hours as well, it was my so far most time-consuming piece.
I guess I am not happy because they do not look exactly like their subjects. Close enough but not exactly. Which is why I ought to redo this assignment, so that I push my own boundaries and learn something new.
All in all, I would not call either of them "Expressionistic", but they do express something at least.

A self-portrait

So here we are - the very first post of this art-blog. It's kind of fitting, is it not, to start by posting the very first finished picture during its existence, too! To the right be a self-portrait in acrylics, on a 3F format panneau (or, canvas board), primed for oil colours, acrylic colours and gouache.

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