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Monday, June 20, 2011

Double portrait

It's my birthday, today I can do whatever I want....within reason. So bearing that in mind I've made a start on a pair of portraits of my niece. These are based on two photographs taken on the same day, same lighting but showing two different moods. I'm actually painting these at the same time, each time I pick up a new stick of colour I use it on one, then the other before I use another colour. Interesting experiment so far. Both are on 35 X 40 cm grey pastelmat.


Reference photos:




















Charcoal undersketch:

  





















Filling colour with soft pastels:




















So far so good.



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5 comments:

  1. Elizabeth AndersonJune 22, 2011 at 8:11 AM

    Happy Birthday Ben! Yes more than good so far. I like how you have the lighting on her face. Have a great day.

    ReplyDelete
  2. BencoJune 22, 2011 at 1:19 PM

    Thanks for the happy birthday, it was a good day, spent most of it working on these two, good fun.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Gary L. EverestJune 23, 2011 at 11:01 PM

    Happy Birthday Ben,
    Congratulations and I hope the celebration was worthy of such a fine and famous artist!
    Your double portrait idea is brilliant. And I must say, your reference photos are stunning. You can't miss with such wonderful material.
    Have fun working on them and again, Happy Birthday.
    Sincerely,
    Gary.

    ReplyDelete
  4. BencoJune 23, 2011 at 11:11 PM

    Thanks Gary. I certainly hope I can't miss, I've been meening to have a go with these two photos for a while, this makes her my most painted subject by quite a long way.
    :-)

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  5. Gary L. EverestJune 26, 2011 at 11:26 AM

    Hello Again, Ben,
    You obviously have a great talent for drawing and portraiture. My Maestro, William Matheny, used to tell me about how different children's physiology is compared to an adult, particularly in the facial proportions.
    I have seen numerous portraits of children painted with adult facial proportions and they not only look unreal, they are often quite horrid. How an artist can look at their work and not notice this grave error is difficult to comprehend.
    Anyway, you have done a quality job of it already and we're all looking forward to seeing the paintings when you decide they're finished.
    Have a great day.
    Gary.

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