Girl,with a Pearl Earring WIP Masters copy


Well an old master I am not, well maybe I qualify for the old part.  Am finally getting the base coats on the garment and the face tones.  I have been battling it out with her right-hand cheek and mouth areas, the nose, forehead and chin.  Whew, talk about one step forward and ten steps back.   Next project is going to be tried with the oils.  
 I am struggling as I can't get the skin tones smooth.  The acrylic wants to dry super fast today and I didn't add extender so, I am really going back and forth between the glazes and dead color coats.  Then it streaks, blobs and dries hard color in parts and white shows through in others.  I think I am too anxious and pulling color up that I just put down because the acrylic really isn't dry in the dead color parts.  Then I am ending up,with too much face color and have to overpaint to tone it down.  so I think I am glad it rained and cooled things down so I can try the porch for a bit and chill out and tomorrow is another day.  Just get away from it and maybe my objectivity may return.  
Thanks for stopping by and hope you are getting ready for TGIF.

Comments

hmuxo said…
What a difference when you toned down the shadows .... its really coming along beautifully Nelvia! I can imagine how difficult it is to work with paint that dries so quickly! Love it.
August 14, 2015 at 7:56 AM
renate said…
Hello dear friend! I'm totally in love with her left eye. What a difference. Her face is so soft. The shadow on her cheek is beautifully. not so hard. And her coat also has a beautiful color. You're doing great sweetie!! You are a master and not old:) Fine weekend and hugs for both:) xxx
August 14, 2015 at 1:08 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Bold woman's portrait

Image
Bold Ok, for today's portrait I went out of the box and decided to try a different look and approach. This is on watercolor paper, I applied a layer of paper collate over it (you can see that some of it started lifting - so got to use more medium to glue it next time)  Anyway then I tried to leave part of that under collage showing, even in the face.  Went back in and applied several more light lawyers of transparent and opaque paint and then put in the hair using my dagger bus.   Gosh that brush makes hair so much easier While this might not the best example what are your thoughts to taking portraits this more dynamic direction? Thanks for stopping by and taking a look.
Read more

Her Highness mixed media woman portrait

Image
Her Highness   I just absolutely loved the expression on this lady and knew I wanted to try to capture her elegance and serenity.  I knew that I didn't want an exact portrait and decided to try another mixed media piece.    I added blobs of paint and used my large scraper to make the areas of color.  Just put paint on a piece of watercolor paper.  Then I inscribed and mixed the colors together with the end of my brush and got all the wavy lines (in real life they actually stand up so there is a 3D effect to the background).  Where I thought I wanted the face I really scraped most of the paint off, and ended up with color blotches and tones, and if you look in the forehead you can sort of see the design that was left.  I thought it would add some variance to the skin tones. I also want to keep her very soft so I tried to stay in the pastel tones, even with the lips.   Once I got shadows and lights added in, and went over it with some skin tone and more blue colors I let
Read more

In The Garden acrylic painting Redo

Image
In The Garden Original painting Well, thankfully I have some folks who tell me what they think.  I value their objective opinions very much and appreciate that they feel strongly enough to tell me when they feel something is off.  In the original painting no one liked the addition of the yellow flower, and felt it pulled the eye and overshadowed the focal point.   Well, I sat on it a bit and starting playing with how I could work it back into the composition.  I wanted the third flower, but I couldn't just really dull down the yellow.  As you an see I ended up making it darker in shadows and then burying it into the foliage.  I like it better because it now looks, to me, like it is part of the picture instead of just being put on in the corner.  Moral of the story, fix it first because it is hard to come in and match colors later. What do you think of the changes - for better or worse? Thanks much for stopping by and taking a look.
Read more