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Daily Deviation

Daily Deviation

July 31, 2011
PAINT WITH ARC TUTORIAL by ~suprhppymgcprincesss -- Suggester's words: A very detailed, step-by-step tutorial of how to paint realistically using vibrant lights and shadows.
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PAINT WITH ARC TUTORIAL

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**ENLARGE FOR GREAT JUSTICE**

Why hello there, I didn't see you sneak up behind me while I was painting. What a suprise! I see that you are interested in my painting, and would like to also paint something similar!

Well you should probably go to school for it. I'm self-taught, which is probbaly not a bad thing, but I'm sure that I have many bad habits that I've picked up.

Why, you're persistent, aren't you? Well I suppose I can let you in on some things I've learned. But I can't guarantee anything. Don't come crying to me if you've been told that you're DOING IT WRONG. Sheesh.

How do I do it, you ask? How do I PAINT A PORTRAIT USING ACRYLIC PAINTS?



ON RESEARCH:

Well, I begin with references shots of everything I need. Of my subject and whatever else is to be included. Clothing, background images, etc.
In this case I needed photos of Jay, of his fave train. I also picked up photos of people in overalls and train engineer outfits.



ON COLOUR-SCHEME:

I then decide what colours I think work best with the subject. Lately I've realized that limited colour palettes make for bolder, more defined compositions. The more colours you add in, the more distracted and ultimately forgettable the painting becomes.

I like to work with complimentary colours. I chose to work with Cerulean Blue, and Raw Sienna.
Raw sienna also makes a great orangey tone for skin. Cerulean blue looked the closest colour to train engineer's archetypal uniforms.

Yellow ochre is great for skin, it is a toned-down yellow. It mixes with cerulean blue to make an olive green I could use in shading. Plus I figured if I greyed it down, I could use it on the train engine in the background.
Vermillion red, like raw sienna contrasts well with the cerulean blue, and in this case would work for parts of his skin that were flushed (the nose, the cheeks, the lips, fingernails, and the ears)

I grabbed a titanium white - it's a reliable white, and adds opacity when you need it.

Finally, and I hesitated on this, I used my tube of payne's grey. I generally shy away from black. It can dull colours, or make them stand out too much from the rest of a painting. I tend to create "black" by mixing complimentary colours instead. It fits better with the palette, since one colour tends to dominate slightly, and so fits in with all the other instances of that colour on the canvas.

Payne's grey however, isn't like many blacks. It really isn't a true black. It's a dark semi-transparent blue-grey colour. Almost black, but not quite. As such it can turn yellow paint to dark green and red paint to dark plum. Mixed with white makes a beautiful blue-grey. It can really broaden the possible colour-combinations for your paintings.
My only beef with it is that it dries to a glossier finish, possibly because of its transparency. Most won't be worried about that factor though, especially if you're a fan of using additives or mediums.


SO in summary:
Titanium White
Payne's Grey
Cerulean Blue
Yellow Ochre
Raw Sienna
Vermillion
Try to keep your own palettes to a max of 6 or 7. Simpler is better.



ON PAINT-BRUSHES:

Your choice, really. I hate cleaning brushes, so I use 2 or 3 at most. Flat head paintbrushes. I also like synthetic that aren't too stiff or soft, and they don't leave hairs behind. They also don't create a textured brush stroke.



THE BEGINNING:

I work on a sketch or two, to become comfortable with the figure and composition. Then I draw it on the canvas.
Um drawing on the canvas can be an issue. I like drawing on canvases. It give me an idea of where things will be.

HOWEVER...

if you're using semi-transparent paints, especially yellows, and you want to have big sweeping pure yellow strokes all over the painting, DO NOT DRAW ON IT WITH PENCIL...

not only does the pencil show through, but the graphite will actually be picked up by the paint and the brush, and taint the pigment.



FINALLY, PAINTING:

Everyone has a way they like to start their painting off. Some people do it piece by piece. I borrow a little technique from oil painting. I begin with a very thin layer of paint on the canvas, something I'll either be using frequently in the painting, or I'll be contrasting with a lot. In this case, blue.


ON OUTLINING and PROPORTIONS:

My next step is important. The pencilling was just to decide where things would end up. Now with a paint brush I have to build the figure. Therefore, I need to make sure that every feature fits in place with every other feature. Like a jiggsaw puzzle. It's especially important with portraits. More errors can lead to a portrait looking nothing like the individual you were trying to represent. I attempt to fix that problem at this stage, so that I don't have to fix it later when I've already done 4 or 5 hours' worth of work.

I use my paintbrush or a pencil to measure heights, widths and angles. The distance between each feature on the face, the angles between features.

It helps to break things down into triangles. A great way is to mark it right on the canvas. I wasn't sure about the brow ridge and the distance between the eyes so I drew a line across the bridge of his nose.

You just gotta keep looking back and forth, error checking, error checking, error checking.

Edit: Another way to go about this step is to forgo outlining completely, and instead focusing on blocking in all the shadows. In my experience, this has worked best with lighting conditions where there are deeper shadows cast on the features, making the colour shapes immediately obvious.

When you're trying to figure out the face, it is also prudent to look at the "negative space" in the photo, rather than the model himself. I've overheard professional artists boasting this to be "the way" to accurately copy an image. It sounds strange at first, but give it some thought. The idea is to forget the object. As humans, we naturally have preconceptions of what known objects. When someone asks us to "draw a person" we have in our mind's eye what a person should look like, and can then create that image on paper. However, I think that this can interfere with our reproductions from life.
The idea of "looking at the negative space" is to ignore the "known object", and focus solely on what is shaping the negative space.


ON BLOCKING IN COLOUR:

Stare at the subject's face for a while, look for blocks of colour. A flush of pink in one area, a flush of yellow in another. Yellows I tend to find around the eyes, as well as oranges and burgundies. I also find yellows at the corners of mouths and on temples. Pinks I see on noses, chins, eye lids, ears, cheeks and the tops of foreheads. I keep layering and looking for more colours. There is a ton of mixing at this stage. Start of with middle tones.

Slowly I'll add more and more detail. Then I add darker details. Then highlights. I'll keep working in more middle tones to try to smooth things out a bit.

Halfway through I'll start working on the background. That way I won't screw up the foreground, and if I do spill paint over onto it, I can still fix it without being pissed off :P



addendum: it is raw sienna, not burnt sienna that I used in step 7


Edit: Thanks for the DD guys! O__O awesome.
Image size
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KairaMcLilian's avatar
Its sooo helpfull, thank You!