Latest Indian Portrait

I photographed three today starting with my Nikon Digital SLR but unfortunately the battery ran out and I reverted to my old Canon A95. The following portrait photographed the best of the three so I'll have to try again with the Nikon. I'm very much an ad hoc photographer so my results are often variable - much like my painting!

Curley-Bear Blackfoot Chief 1903, Schut Vivace 115lb Not 15" x 11"

He doesn't appear too happy in the original photograph which I think comes through in the painting. Overall I'm quite pleased with this one. The usual mix for the features of Cadmium Red Light, Cad Yellow Light, also Raw Sienna, with Cerulean, Cobalt and Ultramarine Blue in various amounts added to create the darker complexion. 

I'll discuss my palette choices, not that they are anything out of the ordinary, at a future date. I do like to have plenty of options so have a main palette of sixteen colours with a smaller supplementary palette with a further nine. Usually I major on probably no more than six with smaller amounts of several others. I seem to use the earth colours quite extensively. The very limited palette is not for me because I follow the Charles Reid/Judi Whitton approach of trying for a finish first time- which isn't always possible. I also try not to overmix,  mixing where possible on the paper. The American artist Al Stine says, somewhere in one of his books, that he doesn't know any good artist who paints with a first time finish. Obviously he doesn't like such an approach! Is he getting at Charles Reid?

My wife and I are off to Sorrento for a week this Friday, volcano ash permitting, so there will be no more posts for at least ten days. The painting gear is being sorted for packing although the weather forecast is a bit miffy. Still one lives in hope.