Eskiminzin

Eskiminzin was the chief of the Aravaipa band of the Western Apache. The painting is from a photograph taken when, in his later peaceful period,  he had become a prosperous farmer with a ranch, ranch-type house, cattle and cultivated land. He was so succesfull that avaricious white settlers soon found a way to return him and his family to the reservation and steal his property and possessions.

Eskiminzin 16" x 12" watercolour paper 140lb not but not sure what make

I commenced with a pencil drawing the day prior to my Thursday AVA session as I find this is the best way. I can then concentrate straight away on painting and take more time. 

As usual I start with the eyes then the nose followed by the mouth. I use my Isabey travel brush size 6 together with the other Isabey size 4 and 6 Kolinsky sables. If you think this odd the reason is that the travel brush is nothing like a normal size 6, being much smaller in body but quite long and slim. Why  it is called a 6 I can't imagine, I don't strictly adhere to the above straying into adjacent areas when painting these features but in general this is the procedure. As I've said many times before this is based on what Charles Reid teaches. Since viewing Gerard Hendriks DVD I have been trying a slightly different approach in that I, rather than rushing straight through, have been using a hair dryer to thoroughly dry the paint before proceeding to the 2nd stage. Gerard paints in three or even four stages thoroughly drying the painting in between. This he says is one of the ways that ensures transparency when overpainting.

Colours used were mainly Translucent Brown (Schminke Pbr41) with Ultramarine Blue and a touch of Permanent Rose. I also introduced Lukas Cobalt Violet (PV14) as a trial. This particular brand of Cobalt Violet is quite  weak, as Cobalt Violet is generally and the shade a pale violet grey. See the piece about Cobalt Violet with comments from John Softly (INDEX JUNE 2014). They do vary with some much pinker. The hair was Ultramarine mixed with Translucent Brown and so was the shading on the hat in weaker mixtures. The clothing is basically Raw Umber and Raw Sienna with some shading with the above colours. I still haven't really cracked this with the original photograph a sort of black and white / Sepia colour.  I put some green and pink in the background but am not entirely happy with that aspect. I did overpaint with the same colours in the face once fully dry to get the shading right. As far as accuracy is concerned it is a reasonable likeness.