Sunday, 6 March 2011

Model Portrait

Last weekend the Guardian colour mag had a lovely cover photo of a beautiful model with fantastic hair. I was so taken with it I decided to try and paint her. Unfortunately due to copyright restrictions I can't show the original photograph so you'll have to use your imagination!

Stage 1 & 2. The drawing and first try at the features.

Hair (!), face and lower area.


THE MODEL! Waterford 16" x 12" Not

She has quite dark skin and striking eyes. As for the hair. Wow! The hair was painted mainly with a combination of Burnt Sienna and Ultramarine Blue mixed partly on the paper. There is a little Burnt Umber, Cerulean Blue and Ultramarine Violet (Rowney PV15) plus some Viridian (Rowney), but the main colours are various mixes of the Burnt Sienna/Ulramarine Blue combination.  The face colour is a mixture of Cadmium Red Light, Yellow Ochre, Quinacridone Gold (PO49) and Quinacridone Rust (Graham PO48). with Ultramarine and Cerulean to darken. The colours in the dress are Ultramarine Violet and Cerulean, heavily diluted. Also small touches of Burnt Umber and Burnt Sienna. I used mainly two brushes. The Isabey Size 6 retractable for the features and Rosemary Size9 Series 33 Kolinsky for most of the rest. I also used a long-handled No 4 W & N Cirrus. Comments welcome.
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18 comments:

  1. Unknown6 March 2011 at 05:22

    Great effort Peter, your portrait work has really developed over this year and your use of colour enhances your image making.

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  2. Peter Ward6 March 2011 at 06:28

    Thanks as usual Mick. I do feel I've made some progress over the last year and have kept one or two going back at least a year to compare with present work. Still a way to go though.

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  3. CharM6 March 2011 at 07:29

    Hi Peteris ... this is my first visit to your Blog... Your art is absolutely beautiful! I like that abstract and feel that it speaks from the heart about the horror of wild fires...

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  4. CharM6 March 2011 at 07:31

    I had to come back to say that your portrait is beautifully done! Preserving those white spaces makes it special... but even more, I LOVE her hair!

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  5. Peter Ward6 March 2011 at 09:22

    Thanks for visiting CharM and welcome. Your comments are much appreciated. She does have fantastic hair doesn't she!

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  6. witte's end studio6 March 2011 at 15:48

    good afternoon (probably night in the uk!), peter. i agree that the hair is the most striking aspect of your painting and is very well done. i am right on the verge of trying to paint some portraits of people of color so your posting today is timely for me. additionally, i am interested in painting native americans so your whole series on them over the last months was very helpful as well. i am also wondering how you became interested in painting native americans. thanks for sharing.

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  7. JJ6 March 2011 at 20:17

    Absolutely fabulous!!!! Love your palette too!

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  8. Peter Ward7 March 2011 at 02:06

    Hi Bob
    Thanks for commenting. If you look at my profile you'll see my interests which highlight the American West, although specifically it is the conflict between the Army/settlers and the Amerindian. As a boy I loved westerns of which Hollywood made sqillions. Not today though. My favourite westerns are those by John Ford although there are several others.
    My approach to painting portraits is based on that of Charles Reid and I would recommend his books `The Natural Way to Paint' and his latest (and possibly last) `Watercolour Solutions'.

    There are two indian portraits in his last book and searching the web brings up a few more.

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  9. Peter Ward7 March 2011 at 02:06

    Thanks for those kind words Judy.

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  10. hap7 March 2011 at 08:22

    Hi Peter! My goodness, you're becoming so popular!!:-) The hair is good....but you KNOW where my mind is! Yes, skin tone!! All I can say is Wow! you've really to a touch on this one!! Three thumbs up from me!! And the eyes are stunning!! (I like John Ford films too...and John Houston as well!)

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  11. Peter Ward7 March 2011 at 09:00

    Hi Hap. It's being so popular that keeps me going! Seriously though thanks for those comments.
    I put a post on Sunday's Daily Wash on WC in response to one of yours but perhaps you didn't read it.

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  12. hap7 March 2011 at 13:56

    I responded to it in the Monday wash (grin) Tacoma is about 30 miles south of Seattle and we have our own waterfront as well. I had fish and chips too...cod, I like halibut just a wee bit better but cod was more reasonably priced yesterday! Sadly mushy peas are not offered as a side dish here ;-( or I would have ordered them! Now, what is your favorite western movie of ALL?

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  13. Peter Ward8 March 2011 at 02:23

    I'll e-mail you on this one Hap because most of my readers (Big Grin) may not be into fish and chips and westerns.

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  14. witte's end studio8 March 2011 at 09:13

    thanks for the insight. the reason i asked was that i have worked with the lakota people of the oglala sioux tribe on pine ridge reservation in southwestern south dakota. hence my interest. you will most likely recognize this as the location of the site of the infamous "wounded knee massacre." the wounds from this are still deep in the tribal members whose ancestors were killed there.

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  15. Peter Ward8 March 2011 at 11:20

    Hi Bob

    Very interesting. I know all about Wounded Knee naturally with my interest, but a book I obtained fairly recently `Encyclopedia of Indian Wars' 1859 -1890 by Gregory Michno states that Wounded Knee was not the "one-sided affair that is usually portrayed" (quote) Apparently the 7th Cavalry losses were only exceeded by those at the Little big Horn.

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  16. hap8 March 2011 at 14:58

    History is rarely objective Peter. Both sides had their own particular views of the events. I suspect there is a lot of truth to be found in both accounts. Same goes for the "incident" in 1973 at the same site.

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  17. Rannie Grosvald24 February 2012 at 10:03

    WOW - I stumbled on your painting by sheer serendipity while exploring "cerulean blue". I think it's fabulous and, if legal and available, I would love a copy of your copy - :-)

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  18. Peter Ward24 February 2012 at 11:19

    Thanks for commenting Rannie. Unfortunately I sold that painting to the husband of a painting friend. I would have loved to have kept it.

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