Weeks 8 & 9 Bath College Portrait Course

The final two weeks of this 9 week course were again painting our model Linda. 

Linda

This was my first effort  Week7  

Second effort Week 8 - 50cm x 65cm Canson 140lb (300gsm) not . I think I like this best of the three.

Early stages of `3rd attempt at `Linda'

Third and final painting 50cm x 65cm Canson 140lb not . This was slightly rushed with less time spent on it compared to the previous two.

In the first two instances I painted her at more or less the same, although not identically so, whereas for the final one I was moved around to the left so had a more sideways angle. With all three paintings I experimented with the skin colour as this was new to me never having done a black person before. The colours were mainly Ultramarine Blue, Burnt Umber, Transparent brown (Schminke PBr41), a little Cadmium Red and Cerulean Blue. I think that's it but I've probably missed something out - possibly Ultramarine Violet. I used my Isabey and Escoda Kolinsky travel brushes with the larger sizes like 14 predominant. The final two are the largest paintings I've ever done.  The boards holding the paper, held by strips of masking tape, were absolutely vertical. While I do paint fairly upright, usually not quite so much as this. I've tried to follow Charles Reids advice to be a little `crude' and to some extent went for it with the possibility that a disaster would ensue. This didn't happen although you may disagree. Certainly the number of `likes' on the Facebook group `Portraits & Figures (People) in Watercolour', which I started - almost 13000 members so far - are not particularly flattering, very low compared to many other paintings posted. I've had a better response on my personal Facebook page.

As you may imagine this was quite an experience. I felt I coped with it quite well and came away thinking I'd definitely learned something - not bad at my age! Prior to the course I was beginning to think my learning capacity had hit a brick wall. I'm considering taking a Life Painting course with the same tutor although the timing of it is a slight problem, being in the evening rather than morning..