Sunday, February 27, 2011

Two Faces

 Yesterday, Steve and I did a long hike, exploring some new territory a little south of our house, near Gilman.
For film aficionados, the new "3:10 to Yuma" with Russel Crowe was filmed in Gilman - it is very remote and "western" down in the canyons.  We took an old road up into the forest, where we saw this "tree spirit".  Look closely; he even has teeth!  Of course, you would not want to put this into a painting.  This is a perfect example of "weird stuff" that you should just leave out... but he was amusing nonetheless.



Hayley

This second face is a portrait study of the daughter of a friend of mine. I might touch up a few places still, perhaps smooth a few transitions.  I have found that painting very young faces is difficult - it seem almost impossible to keep them from looking older!  Every time I work on a portrait, though, I learn something, and I'm figuring out which method of "starting" works best for me. For this one, I left the hair in the initial thin wash and kept the background just the white of the canvas for a change. 

 For economy, I buy large canvas and linen pads - they are about 10 sheets to a pad, and end up costing me less than $2 each sheet.  Centurion has a nice oil primed linen that comes in pads, and I believe the pad was only about $16 for the 16x20 size. I usually buy 18x24, so I can cut the sheets down if needed.  Check the online art supply places, and you should be able to find them.  I think I have a big Fredrix pad also, that is canvas, but has a nice finish to it and paints easily.

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