Tag: portrait

Girl with a pearl earring?

Sometimes I have fun with the Reface app on my phone, and one time I replaced the face in the painting “Girl With a Pearl Earring” with my own. Just for fun. A bit later I figured it could be fun to try painting it, but painting a portrait? That was a scary thought. Could I manage?

But I still started painting it, on a small canvas. Just, I waited with the face; that was the hard part, I figured. I managed to fill in the rough placement of the features in the face before I had to end that painting session. And – I never continued. It stayed unfinished.

Until now.

The last evening of the painting classes, and portraits was a challenge. I figured I could try to finish it.

My version of “Girl with a pearl earring”

So I attacked the task with my smallest brushes trying to get the details in place. And to mix sensible colours, of course. Maybe it would’ve been easier with a larger canvas. It would provide a bit more wiggle room to make the placement of details a bit easier, and they wouldn’t be that small …

As it is, I managed to make some things correct, while other things really should be adjusted. If I want to paint portraits, I should practise more. Much more. At least if I want to get the likeness I would like, but I must also admit that I was my own largest critic; the others apparently saw more likeness than me …

That said, I’m not unhappy with it. I do think it looks nice, so I’ve managed that, at least. I do have another portrait I need to finish, too. One day. But it will be done – I’ve got a little push now.

Halloween Portrait

Around Halloween, it was time again for a new five-day portrait challenge from Paintable. Last time, this spring, was my first time trying it, and also my first time painting a portrait. At least in a serious way. Would I get a better result this time? Only one way to find out: I had to do it!

The task was like last time, except for one twist. Since Halloween was approaching fast, the final portrait should be of a monster; zombie, vampire, witch, whatever. Either make the monster from the start or take the finished painting and make it into a monster. I decided to make a vampire. A female one.

Start sketching

So I got my model, placed some lights where I wanted them to create the mood, and then I was ready to take the steps as usual.

Starting out with a clean sketch
And block in colours

Light, medium and dark skin tones. That’s how it’s usually done at this step. And I started that way, but … this time the lighting was more complicated. I had used both red and blue lights, and the shadows, were bluer. I had to fix that, so in my next step, the blue shadows were added in addition to the smoothing the colours.

OK, this is more like it!

With the colours I wanted in place, and smoothed out for a natural result, things are looking good. I still have to do something about that hair, and there are details that need to be taken care of.

Got her some jewellery and coloured contact lenses …

Hair straightened out and made look more like hair. Earrings were added, in the shape of bats, of course. She’s a vampire, after all. Should the eyes stay blue, or should they be more mysterious? Red or yellow were too common for monsters – I made them purple. The teeth were still too white, so I changed those, too, slightly.

I also added the lighting to the background, and some other details, slightly out of focus. It’s already a lot better than the one I did in spring, but I want a final touch-up.

Finished. My own Vampirella.

I wanted the hair to look even more like hair, so I spent some time brushing it. Digitally, at least. She got some slightly lighter irises, and some cute freckles were added. And a slight trickle of blood from the side of her mouth, after the free lovebites she’s been giving.

Am I happy with the result? Indeed I am!

My First Portrait

When I took the challenge of painting my first portrait ever in five days, problems arose. Did I overcome them, or not?

My digital painting of an apple started a new era, I said. Or wrote. To follow up on that claim, I need to show it, right? Show that I’m doing some digital painting now. I guess it’s time to rejoice just a little bit now then because the week after the “apple boot camp” the “one week portrait”-challenge started.

The same steps used in the previous boot camp were used now. Day one: Make a rough sketch/line art of the portrait. Get the proportions correct, but the details weren’t that important just now. So I did that.

Day two: Add the main colours; skin colour, including light and shadow versions. Same for lips, eyes, hair, clothes and whatever else is needed. Just add them in the main areas, leaving hard edges between the colours. I did that. It looked kinda weird, but I trusted the process.

Day three: I left for Easter, bringing my laptop and drawing tablet with me. The task was to blend the colours together to make it look nice. A little bit more focus on details. When I was ready to do it – my laptop failed me. Or rather, Photoshop failed me. When I opened the file I was working on, all that was showing was a white canvas. All the layers were there, but they didn’t show.

I could turn the different layers “visible” and “invisible” and save the ones I wanted as a flattened image, just one layer. A one-layer file would show, and I could edit it. Doing everything in just one layer.

Ouch!

That complicated things.

I would have to do things differently from how I normally would do stuff. More like painting with acrylics on canvas: I couldn’t just undo mistakes easily, and had to be a lot more careful. I did the best I could.

Day four: Take care of the details and textures. Again, I did what I could. My drawing tabled acted up, too, giving me a hard time.

Day five: Make the finishing touch to make it pop, and make it my style. I fought Photoshop, which I had made partly working, and my tablet. Was I victorious? At least I managed to post a result on the last day.

My finished portrait

Am I happy with the result? Actually, yes, I am. It’s not that I don’t see weaknesses and things that can be better, because I certainly do. But not only did I struggle with the software and hardware this time, but it’s also my first portrait ever. I don’t think I should be ashamed of this painting.

I like it.

Will I try to redo it later? Maybe. Or maybe I’ll just try painting a completely different portrait. Or something completely different. I do know I will continue with digital painting, but also with acrylics.