My second and final painting for the year- which I started during the Thanksgiving break and finished before Christmas. I'm quite happy with the result, although the photo of the painting itself is disappointing. The close-up photo is accurate, but I don't know why oil paintings don't photograph well. I think part of it is that I'm not blending color so much and the photo tends to flatten the color and hardened the brushstrokes. In person the painting has a much softer feel to it.
I used the computer a lot on this one to match color, and I used a noise/dustscratches filter to remove detail as well as a posterizing filter to indicate my color breaks. Everything went great until I got to the hair and faces. Really struggled at that point because of color and trying to match the photo's flesh tones. My goal was to paint loose but for the color to be photo realistic.
In the end I realized that the faces require far more work because so much happens in such a tight area-whereas you can be very basic with the clothing and background. If you're off just a bit on the clothing no one will ever know, but you don't have that luxury with the face- it has to be dead on. The slightest curve in the eyelid or the lips makes a huge difference. Quite stressful. I probably should have used a different photo of Jake- the squinty look probably wasn't the best choice (seemed OK at the time) but I wanted both of them smiling, and the photo being a year old, Jake has changed a lot whereas Brooke hasn't changed much at all- so everyone likes Brooke's portrait better. One oddity is that if you view the painting from the side- Jake looks better than Brooke because it elongates his face and ages him a bit so he looks older and more like he does today. When the faces were basically done I still tinkered with them for a week because everyday I would see a tiny detail (comparing the photos to the painting) that I didn't see before- which was interesting and a helpful thing to do.
Well- there you go- glad it's done, it went very fast til I did the faces but I didn't make the same mistakes that I had on the previous painting. Did a tighter drawing, did a better under painting (could have been better) and used the computer for my color. Also learned a lot about brush size (need to improve my brush stroke) and color mixing, but the bottom line is this takes a tremendous amount of concentration to do, and in hindsight- if I had not picked up the brush now, at age 46- I don't know if I could do this if I waited another ten years. I am much much faster now- far more decisive (thanks to designing Christian tees the last 12 years!) but the level of concentration and patience necessary is what will erode first as I get older. I believe that if I ever take a long break again (15 years) like I did that I wont be able to get it back- this gift will be gone and it would be my fault, and mine alone for wasting it.
