“Expressive Portraits” by Jean Pederson

After going on about getting to Chapter 3 in ‘Ways to Learn Acrylics’, it’s kinda funny that I’m switching gears and blogging about a different book. Don’t worry, later blogs will be about acrylics from Chapter 3.

Next week in all three of my art classes we are studying portraiture, so it’s the perfect time to try exercises in “Expressive Portraits” by Jean Pederson. The artist's portraits are really wonderful; they are mixed media, painterly type portraits that use vivid colours. Her book is pretty comprehensive. It explains all the things a beginning artist would need to know about drawing/painting a portrait; it also shows you the methods Jean uses. I’ve done a few exercises to try and learn more about watercolour portraits.

One exercise ‘practice wet glazing’ I did twice; on the left the portrait was painted on textured watercolour paper 300gsm 10” x 7” inches and on the right on Khadi paper 8” x 8”. It’s funny that both paintings are of the same woman but they look totally different. They aren’t perfect but it was fun to have a go and not be too precious about the results. All my art teachers say that by experimenting you learn.

Another exercise ‘build a background of rich, varied darks' isn’t completed, but I like the way it looks without all the dark colours. It certainly doesn't look as good as Jean's first step, but I'm not that accomplished... maybe someday:)

Also, there were some pretty cool YouTube watercolour portrait painting videos. Here are two awesome ones:
Lesson 16 / Painting the Portrait by Stan Miller
Watercolor step by step how to paint portrait, demo by Zimou Tan

Drawing & Painting Class – Portrait w/ Joel (Red, Yellow, Blue & White Paint)

Last term in my acrylic painting class we did a glazing with black and white prints of people. I chose to do Robert Deniro, so for this assignment, I chose the same image. What a nightmare... it was difficult to draw him because his face was at an angle.

Using red, yellow & blue acrylic paint we made a grey wash for the background. Then with willow charcoal we drew the image, it didn’t come out perfect because only 30 minutes was allotted for drawing. Next we began to block colours in for the face. It would have come out better if there was more time, but the class is only 2 ½ hours so what you see is what you get.

I wanted to try and do another portrait in oil because Joel said it’s easier to blend since the paints don’t dry so quickly. I bought a cheap set of oil paints and some ‘Winsor & Newton Sansodor’ from WH Smith and started another Deniro at home. The oil painting was proving just as difficult and I’m too embarrassed to show a pic of it…sorry.

Watercolour Portrait & Chinese Painting with Wendy

Previous class practice drawing eyes, noses and mouths came in handy for our next assignment - a tonal portrait study.

Tonal Study

Wendy supplied photos to choose from; my dad and I both love Clint Eastwood so…

Colour Study

We also did a colour study, not my favourite. I seem to have trouble when I need to add colour. 

In our last class we learned to do Chinese painting; practicing bamboo with ink and Chinese brushes on cartridge paper.

For the final project we made bookmarks on watercolour paper; it was a nice ending to the class. By adding a hole and a ribbon I now have a lovely bookmark to remind me of the class.

This type of painting interested me so adding to my library, once again, I bought a book: ‘Chinese Brush Painting Handbook’ by Pauline Cherrett. The only trouble was I didn’t have the right brushes. Wendy had lent us inks and brushes for the class so I used my regular watercolour brushes and paint.

I only achieved a halfway decent fish.  Someday I will buy brushes, read the book again, and try to make more paintings.