Medicine Crow

This is my latest Amerindian portrait of a warrior called Medicine Crow. I don't know what tribe. Added 16/05/17 Actually he is a Crow Indian.

Medicine Crow - 16" x 12" Lanaquerelle 140lb (300gsm) not

This is based on another of the old black and white/sepia photographs and is an interpretation of it rather than a straight copy. I'm not great at copying and avoid doing so as much as possible. This is one of the hardest things when painting from photographs as the tendency to try and copy has to be resisted.

Some of my indians are too light in respect of the skin colour but here the result is closer to this dark-skinned individual. Colours used were limited with various mixes involving Ultramarine Blue, Translucent Brown (Schminke PBr41), Burnt Umber plus some Cadmium Red Light. There are touches of one or two other colours like Raw Sienna and Gold Ochre. 

This was painted at home, first a pencil drawing using a Pentel mechanical pencil, Size 7 2B. I then painted it in two stages, first of all the features beginning with the eyes, then the nose and mouth followed by the remainder of the face then the hair. I completed the painting the following day.