L & M pt. 2

ONE problem with blogs is that they sequence bottom to top.  I suppose I may join all the posts together when I get them up, but it is confusing when trying to show you a process...

So, last I had the basics of Lucy's head and skin.


Her adult skin tone was illuminated in interior incandescent from above and a flood of sun from the window on the side.  The two light sources are great for a color project.  Most of the light on my pink Milo belly will be the cooler tones that make for the un-tanned baby flesh I am dying to get into.




The blue splash under the skin tones, as you saw in the close up of Lucy, faintly colors the whole tone.  Building contrasts with more darks in the shirt against the shapes, and bringing colors from the background into the ears, and below the next, help break the isolation of the figures.  Light is what we use to see things, light is what helps us understand, and in art, bringing a sense of that light into areas near each other, gives a much more unified look.

I am trying very hard (not as successfully as I had hoped) to decrease the emphasis of line as the drawing.  Yep, the whole thing IS line... scratches and marks, skinny little lines, but they are being used for what pastels to the best:  building color next to pure color.  Much like pointillism.  The actual color that the eye understands ends up a mixture of all of those presented... so it looks like skin, even if it s blue and green and purple.


To that end, you will see I have reinforced the outlines of the hands and fingers, not with black or charcoal, but a nice low chroma lavender.  With luck I will let them stay light.

Milo is fleshing out.    I used my dark blue, deep Russian-like, and some of the light blue for the whites to show the contrast in the eyes.  I am trying to make a figurative, not a portrait painting here.  

I find I have a situation in my art.  I LOVE to do portraits.  I love to capture the essence of people and things, showing a lot more than appearance, but personality.  THIS picture is an attempt to directly learn a bit about the use of technique and feeling of the Mary Cassatt painting and keep myself within my own restrictions.  Milo is a great looking kid... and neither he nor Lucy actually look LIKE Lucy or Milo.  When I get the painting done, I will labor more on the likenesses if the subject thinks it is worth it.

I think I have a problem with this aspect of painting people because I am SO intrigued by the person.  I call it "Who wants to have a stranger watching you eat?"  I mean, while pursuing the likeness of people, I find their general appeal often is reduced.  To keep trying for the specific over the universal can eliminate a potential market.   Followers are REALLY WELCOME to post comments to support or deny me....

More to come....