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| Toni - work in progress ©Xan Blackburn 2011 |
Fall Portrait Marathon, Painting #2
Toni is all done. I think. It's after 11pm, so I may change my mind in the clear light of day. We'll see. Right now, I say she's done.
(See the finished version at the bottom of the post.)
Toni's portrait got started 2 posts ago, and we left it in the last post looking like this >>
Above, you can see that a lot more work on the underpainting was done, deepening the darks. The eyes weren't quite behaving. I wanted to focus them towards us, with intensity, but they still seem to be looking off over our left shoulder, with an indeterminate expression. I'll keep working on that. Watch the shape of the eyes change as I progress.
In this next phase, you can see I've gotten into the highlights, and some more color. I've dropped in some orange, in the collar and eyes, which are shaping up slightly better, and some pink in the closer ear.
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| Toni - work in progress ©Xan Blackburn 2011 |
I need to work on the couch, too. I think that's the next thing I did, really laying on that blue, shaping up the arm, with it's pleats and piping, and suggesting the curve of the cushion as it curves under Toni's legs and face.
A particular challenge here was to keep the brindling warm and dark, or highlighted more cool, which is less common than the other way around.
I also found myself layering a lot back and forth into the red-gold stripes, making sure they didn't get too yellow, or brown, or pink (??!!).
As of right now, I'm pretty pleased. I think I got enough attention and focus into her eyes to draw and hold our own attention. The couch seems realistic enough without being more interesting than Toni. The strongest areas of contrast are right where I want them: in the area around her eyes. Yes, I think we might be done. I'm going to go to bed and sleep on it.
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