Blog

A quick view of how I use watercolor and acrylic ink to create vibrant underpaintings for my pastel portraits.

After this dries I start applying the pastels.

This is the finished painting:

Here you can see some progression shots for Quiet Beauty II, 12x12 pastel and acrylic.

My approach has been compared to a mosaic type of applying not only the wet underpainting but the first layers of pastel as well.

I exaggerate the colors I see as I work on the underpainting in watercolor and ink on UArt sanded paper.

The finished and dried watercolor and ink underpainting:

Yes, it looks like a mess and I tell my students (and myself!) not to panic at this point but to trust the process! The very forgiving medium of pastel can cover up anything I don't like so I can let loose and have fun with the watercolor first. That step gives me a nice colorful foundation rather than a white paper surface. I can let whatever color I choose to poke through my pastel layers or cover it all up!

First layers of pastel going on:

I still work in patches of color all over the painting, repeating colors in various areas throughout for a harmony and cohesion. I do use more natural skin tones at this point. I find it easier to use punchy colors at first, then tone them down as needed. If I start off too neutral it's more difficult to add life to the painting with more vibrant color later.

Here some areas have been blended already:

 I do use my fingers at this point but I dab at the pigment rather than rubbing it in. It takes the right amount of pigment to make this work. With enough layers the colors blend themselves anyway, or I use harder pastels for blending by letting them push the pigment around that was laid down by the softer pastels. This is the middle stage and more pastel will be applied even over the blended areas because I don't want a too smooth look in the end. I want to see clear markings of pigment, not one smooth area of color. By having just the right amount of pigment on my paper and then dabbing rather than rubbing to blend it doesn't create mud or leave too much oil from my fingers on the piece.

The finished piece with pearlescent acrylic paint applied to the background pattern:

This, as well as Quiet Beauty I, was started as a demo in one of my portrait workshops and I will donate part of the proceeds from sales to the organization who runs the Haitian orphanage where these girls live and where I first met them in 2010. I will have to play around with photographing these in order to get better shots that show the true skin tones as well as the variety of color and light in the background pattern.

My last painting of 2016 was another mixed media piece. Increasingly, I'm enjoying experimenting with new materials to achieve the look I'm after. Here I wanted to juxtapose the realistic, detailed figure with an abstracted background.

To read the story behind this painting, please click here.

#1:

I mounted UArt 320 grit sanded pastel paper onto gatorboard and did a drawing in charcoal which I then sprayed with fixative.

I underpainted the figure and lettering in ink and watercolor. For the background I randomly applied three different blue pastels, washing them with Turpenoid but leaving areas of untouched paper. Then I started applying white gesso with a palette knife working left to right.

#2:

First and second layers of more gesso applied with differently shaped palette knives, making sure I'd leave some blue and blank paper peeking through. This step is a lot of fun!!

#3:

In step 3 I added more gesso to cover up a bit more of the colors in the background. After it dried I dragged black pastel sticks over it, which created interested variations in tone and value because of the heavy texture of the gesso. I played around adding more pastel to some areas while leaving others untouched, blending the pigment into the surface in areas where I wanted more coverage. I then added the "text" (which does not consist of real words) with a soft charcoal pencil. Making random marks look like writing without using real letters is not as easy as it looks! Try it for yourself and you'll see. I have to get into a certain zone (music helps!) to "let it flow" effortlessly. If I force it you can tell!!

#4:

Here I added some greys and blues to the background, colors I would be using in the figure to create more overall harmony (yes, even on a piece dealing with chaos there needs to be harmony!). I then splattered gesso all over it (but very carefully thought out), protecting the figure as best as I could. Spritzing some of the gesso drips with a spray bottle of water and holding the painting at different angles created lovely runs and drips as well as a bit of a "starburst" effect in some spots.

#5:

Once I was happy with the background it was finally time to work on the figure! I knew the background would take me longer than the figure and if I couldn't achieve the look I was after I didn't want to have wasted my time  on the figure. Here I was working from the top down, face first, then shirt and hands.

#6:

Finished with the pants and boots.

#7:

A close up so you can see the scale better.

#8:

Yes, it IS possible to create detail even in small areas with big sticks of pastel! It's all in the touch and the edges of the sticks. I only used pastel pencils VERY sparingly on this (only on the first layers of the pupils and the final strokes of SOME of the creases of the eye lids)!

Finished:

Chaos, 20"x30"

You can see that I added more darks under the figure so he wouldn't be "floating".

I hope this post inspires you to experiment and try mixing different materials. I sometimes get frustrated with the time the learning curve eats up but it's so worth it to grow as an artist and break up the routine. I'm looking forward to more mixed media work in 2017!

Working with a new art coach has been an amazing experience that is helping me to see myself and my work in a new light. You can read my tips about hiring an art coach and how it might benefit your art career in another blog post, but today I'd like to share with you one of the homework assignments from my coach:

I had to pick several not-so-great paintings that I was ready to let go off..meaning that I was ready to destroy! Not an easy task but actually quite liberating as I have been wanting to clear out "old stuff" (ahem..."early work") anyway. My assignment was to tear up a painting and collage it over another one in order to create a new one out of two old ones. BUT...the new one had to essentially have the same message or theme as the old one, except it had to be in a completely abstract style since my regular work is very representational.

Well, if you work in pastel you know what a mess this would create! I took the first painting, called Out of the Blue, outside and washed it off with a garden hose. Since it was painted on Wallis paper this was not a problem. The second painting New Mexico Fire was torn into shreds (yep, it got QUITE dusty!) and collaged on top of the first painting after that had dried.

The original Out of the Blue painting was hosed off

New Mexico Fire was torn to shreds

I actually quite liked this already but as I tried to add pastel on top of it the white edges of the torn paper did not accept any pastel, so I decided to cover the whole thing in acrylic ground for pastels:

I used a foam brush in a criss cross pattern to add the ground but I wish I had sprayed some fixative first in order to try to keep the colors from being diluted and blended so much. O, well, this was a chance to just play and experiment and I was having a blast not worrying about the outcome! I also at this point had to stretch the paper onto a board because it had buckled quite a bit. I wet the back of it after the front had dried and stapled it to a board, then let it dry completely which smoothed it out just fine.

Next step was adding new strokes of pastel. I let my intuition guide me, but knew that I wanted bright colors and a high "horizon" coming out of the dark blue mass toward the bottom:

Time to start adding some of those oranges and reds:

Further developing the painting:

I found myself a little stuck about how to proceed so I turned the piece sideways to check the composition, since a good composition has to work from all directions.

This is the finished piece. I wasn't quite sure if it was done but everybody who saw it (including my coach) said it was and in the end I agreed. I was worried that there was too much bright color and wanted to add some greys but I think the dark blue also dials it down a notch.

Out of the Blue II, 16x14" pastel collage

While this was a lot of fun to do with very little pressure (after all, what could I possibly mess up? The paintings were torn up already!) and I might do some more in the future, for now it's time to focus on the new body of work I'm creating and portrait commissions for the holidays. After the initial shock of destroying two paintings wore off it was a blast to just play and let go of the old! And to let go of any expectations of what would result:)

I'd love to hear if you've ever destroyed old paintings to make room for new ones!

As anyone who knows me will tell you, patience is definitely NOT one of my virtues! So when I found myself eager to get started on a painting but did not have paper in the size I needed I resorted to creating my own surface. I didn't want to compromise on the size I had in mind, so painting smaller with the paper I did have available was not an option. I had actually thought of making this image huge, but since this was a challenging subject already and made more difficult by the lack of my familiar sanded paper, I decided to not push the envelope too much and go with a size that was still comfortable. I had some 1/2" black gatorboard on hand, which I knew was thick enough to avoid buckling or warping when a wet underpainting was applied.

This is the gatorboard I used, size 28"x13"

I applied a layer of gesso on both sides using a cheap foam brush (adding it to the back of the board in addition to the front further ensures no buckling or warping).

You can see the texture of my brush strokes here. Two more layers were added to the front, letting each application dry and sanding it down to smooth out any ridges before applying the next layer.

I know it's hard to tell but this is what it looked like after 3 layers of gesso.

I then applied 3 layers of Golden acrylic ground for pastels, again using a foam brush and laying down the strokes in the general direction the water would eventually go. I let each layer dry before the next, sometimes using a hair dryer to speed it along (again, I am just not a patient person!) but did not sand it down because I needed the texture to hold the pastel pigments later.

Here the drawing is transferred and the underpainting is done. I used acrylic inks and watercolor for this step. You can also see the photo reference that had me so excited to get started even though I didn't have my regular materials on hand!

The first strokes of pastel are applied to the hair and face.

Here you can see very well the rough texture of the ground. While the watercolor in the background looks smooth, once you stroke the pastel on the board it becomes apparent just how much texture there is. Sometimes, I do like a lot of texture but didn't really want it for this piece, so I knew I would have to apply lots of pigment in order to cover it more.

A close-up of the foreground water with its initial layers of color. I later smoothed those out a bit by blending and added more highlights and darks as well.

The finished painting. Despite the challenges of unfamiliar ground (in the truest sense of the word!) I'm pretty happy with the result. It was much more difficult because the sanded paper I usually use (Wallis or UArt) holds many more layers of pastel than I was able to do here.

If you have experimented with substituting materials in a pinch, please share it with us in the comments below, thank you!

 I recently taught a pastel class as part of an "art sampler" class at the art center where I have my studio. The group of students took a different three hour class each Monday night for four weeks, rotating between teachers and mediums. The idea was to give them an introductory class while still allowing them to leave with a finished piece of art each evening. For me, this proved to be quite a challenge. To prepare I asked other artists who teach how they would approach this. One of the suggestions that I used was to have the drawing all done for each student so there would be no precious time spent on getting the drawing down correctly, but we could move right into applying pastel. The students were delighted and felt less nervous when they saw they didn't have to draw! After all, this was a class about how to paint with pastel, not a class on perspective or drawing skills. I also decided to have everyone work from the same photo reference, which is not what I usually do in my classes, but for this purpose it worked very well. All students except one had never used pastels before and had little to no experience in any other medium. It helped them to see how the others tackled the same exact subject.

In preparation, I photographed a very simple still life of two pears, one yellow green and one red (it was not practical to set up individual still lifes in the classroom). I chose this subject after seeing the colors of the starter set of pastels I had purchased (we had to supply all of the materials, so in order to save money I bought four sets of 12 pastels and cut them in half giving each student half sticks). I also liked pears because they are not symmetrical which would further calm students' fears of getting it perfect. Each student had a color and black and white photo attached to their easel as you can see in the photos. In my classes I spend a great deal of time teaching about values and edges using red and green value finders and black and white photos to make it easier to recognize correct values.

For this short class I also finished a painting of the pears beforehand and printed out the step by step instructions so the students could see exactly where we were headed. During the live demo I showed each step and had the students do it immediately after me before moving on to the next step. They told me this was extremely helpful because it broke things down into manageable steps they could easily follow.

Instead of finishing my demo piece completely I spent time at each person's easel helping them with theirs, either by lending an actual hand if desired or by gently guiding theirs.

We managed to finish on time and everybody was pleased with their creation and what is possible to do with pastels in such a short time.

I loved seeing the different styles and approaches even though we all worked on the same subject with the same medium. It was fun passing along my passion for pastels and taking the mystery and fear out of it. I believe at least a couple of the students will be taking other classes to continue exploring this beautiful and very forgiving medium.

Here are some photos from the class:

I set up each easel with a color and black and white photo of the still life, and some scrap pieces of Canson and sanded papers for the students to try strokes of pastel and test the different surfaces. The actual painting was done on Wallis sanded paper, my favorite surface. I also prepared a very simple contour drawing for each student to speed up the process with such a short time. I provided a handout of all the steps we would be completing so they knew exactly what was ahead and could repeat the steps at home with other paintings.

Step 1: Simple drawing in dark red pastel pencil

Step 2: Finding the values. I had the students do this step themselves, using the side of the pastel sticks to apply the value patterns in broad strokes

Step 3-4: Underpainting. Next we applied a layer of pastels in the local colors but exaggerating what we saw, then wetting it all with odorless turpenoid using old watercolor brushes (the sanded paper is hard on the brushes, so you would not want to use new ones). Unfortunately, I forgot to get a photo before the turpenoid was washed over it all.

Step 5: My finished painting, Pears I, 8 x 10"

These were the only colors we used: a 12 piece starter set plus I added the dark red and very light lemon yellow Nupastels . We never touched the brown and only used the black VERY sparingly in the darkest shadow areas making sure we overlayed it with color to give it some life.

Below are some photos of works in progress:

Judi working on her painting.                              I love all the colors Lori added to the background!

Diane was the only one who had used pastels before, but it had been eight years since she did!

Anita's painting on the left, and Nicole's piece on the right.

Rachel, like most of the others, had NEVER picked up a pastel stick before! I was amazed how well each student did. It was a great evening sharing what I love about this medium and the challenge of the class format was a great lesson to me as well.

If you teach art classes and have some other ideas on how to conduct a short class for beginners, please share it in the comments below:)

This was a fun piece to paint of a surfer I observed in Hanalei Bay, Kauai, HI. I was asked to write a step-by-step demo by the website asportinglife.com and you can see it on their site here. Check out some of their other posts, quite a nice collection of sport art and photography!

I donated this piece to an event called Mystery Masterpiece at Studio Channel Islands Art Center where I'm a resident artist and board member. The event is a fun one where the artists are kept secret from the buyers until after purchase so the art is chosen on its own merit.

The collector who chose this painting will stop by my studio to get it signed properly on the front before framing:)

This is the first painting I did from the model shoot at Margaret Dyer's demo at IAPS last month. I loved the angle of the arms, the focus on the head with its loosely pinned up hair and face in lovely profile. I also really liked the abstract quality to the composition caused by the blue sheet taking up half of the space. Even though in reality that sheet had a pattern of butterflies on it, I left those out because I wanted to keep it as simple as possible so it would not distract from the figure. I also changed the color of the sheet, originally making it a bright turquoise that looked lovely against that olive toned background but was not right overall. The value was wrong and as I learned from Margaret, value is everything! Changing it to a different and darker blue was much better.

The biggest challenge when painting after seeing a demo, especially from more than one artist as I did at IAPS, is knowing what to apply to your own process and what to leave out. I absolutely love seeing work that is much looser than mine, and I mean LOVE it, but yet somehow whenever I try to paint that way I'm never quite happy with it. In fact, I feel like I'm being a bit sloppy or worked too fast. I have to admit to myself that I do like a little more tighter look in my own work, not totally photo realistic, mind you (and upon closer inspection mine is not, despite the fact that people compare it to photos all the time), but crisper and more "finished" looking. Finding the balance between learning from others but not copying them  and stretching oneself by trying  new techiniques yet staying true to one's own vision is not easy!

So, in the end I did apply the steps from Margaret's demo with a few adjustments:

• I still did a watercolor underpainting (as a matter of fact, I used watercolor dyes, a tip I learned from Christine Swann, to get as much brightness in the skin tones and vibrancy overall as I could). Here is the underpainting and the reference photo:

• I did not use any black
• From the beginning I used pretty much the local color (but being more daring with strokes of bolder colors) for the skin.
• I did take Margaret's advice and outlined the shadow areas as you can see in the photo above.
• I also used different colors for the background but making sure they were of the same value so that they virtually dispapear into one another when squinting ( I used an olive tone and a purple). I loved the effect!
• I kept the background much simpler by eliminating the window. I added a hint of it at one point but took it out because I found it distracting. I prefer simple backgrounds that let the subject pop!

I'm happy with the final painting. Believe it or not it IS much looser than my regular figure work and most of all I had a lot of fun painting it! I will also use the dyes again as an underpainting. I had no idea how much more saturated the colors are, what fun!

This was the second time I had the privilege to watch William Schneider at work on one of his gorgeous portraits, but the last one was many years ago back in Texas. He was very good then but has only gotten better and added a bunch more awards to his name since then, including the Prix de Pastel, the top honor of the 22nd IAPS Juried Exhibition with his portrait "Queen of Hearts". It's almost impossible to sum up all that he covered in his 3 hour demo in one blog post, but I'll give it a shot. Here are a few points and interesting tips in random order:

• Bill breaks everything down into only two values: light and  dark and treats midtones as light.
• Put detail ONLY in either the shadow or the light areas, never in both (if a subject is backlit the details would be in the shadow aresa, but otherwise they're usually in the light because that's where the viewer is drawn to).
• Make ACCURATE shadow shapes, but not PRECISE ones.
• Be painterly! One of his favorite quotes is: "Perfect is the enemy of good" (I can't remember who said it originally) and "Don't insult the viewer by spelling everything out", advice from C.W.Mundy. 
• He likes "broken tone" to keep it loose like seen in work by Nicolai Fechin and Carolyn Anderson.
• Bill advises to paint "across structures", not follow their lines, i.e.when painting an eyelid, don't make a sweeping sideways stroke but use vertical strokes instead.
• He studied under Harley Brown (this is evident especially in how he begins his work).
• The most important elements he looks for: shape, value, edges, color temperature and design.
• Create flat "poster like" shadow areas but soften their edges.
• Use color and temperature to turn form, especially on the sides of the nose (not lines!). You'll see this in the photos below.
• Make interesting shapes and strokes in the background, too, keeping good design and composition in mind.
• He wears a hat while painting even when indoors (he says it keeps him from hyperfocusing since SQUINTING is the usual mantra and also helps him to see color).
• Bill uses a 5000 Calvin lightbulb to light his models and often likes to use two light sources (if there is North light from a window for example he will use a warmer light to emphasize the cool and warm light patterns even more).
• Instead of the usual mirror that most of us use to check our work in progress from a different angle, he uses a piece of black plexi glass with the backing left on. He holds it up horizontally against his forhead just above his eyes and glances up into it (sorry, I tried to get a photo of this but he was always quicker than my camera!). This lets him see his painting not only in mirror image but also upside down and with the colors muted so seeing the correct values and shapes is much easier.
• To determine whether your light source is cool or warm (not always as easy as its sounds) he holds a piece of white paper into the light and it becomes much easier to see the temperature of the light (I had learned this trick long ago but forgot about it. Thanks for the reminder, Bill!).
• He never blows excess pastel dust off his paper but "thumps" the surface instead.
• To catch the falling pastel dust he folds newspaper under his paintings and secures it with tape (you can see this well in the first photo).
• He twists papertowel into a point to scrape off any unwanted pastel.

I had to write all these little pointers out first, before moving on to the actual painting demo, because Bill would sprinkle them throughout and I had tons of notes!

Ok, let's take a look at how he started the portrait using Wallis sanded paper in Belgian Mist:

Now, please be aware that the strokes of color were put down FIRST before any of the drawing marks were on the paper. Nothing was on the paper when he laid large strokes of the orange down first (warm tones since that was what he observed in the subject's face due to the warm light source), with greenish (cooler) tones in the shadow area of the neck and a bit of blue indicating the shirt and hat. This was ground into the paper pretty well using his hands, covered with a glove to prevent bleeding from the sanded paper:) Unlike some pastel artists, Bill does blend with his fingers especially for skin tones because the smooth look is more true to life. BUT he only does so in the beginning and rarely anywhere except the skin. 

Only after he laid down these colors did he start the drawing using charcoal. This was a very long process with extremely accurate measurements taken at all times. For a portrait Bill positions his easel only about three feet from the model and uses the sight size method (for those of you who don't know what that is click here to get a short tutorial, but basically it's where you see the artist holding out his brush or pencil at arm's length and measuring the distances between certain points on the model with his thumb then transferring that same measurement to the paper).

He started by finding the correct angle and center line of the face using a clock face as reference (i.e. the line starts at about 11:50). He first measured all vertical points: for example from the chin to the corner of the eyes, then top of the eybrows to the base of the nose as compared to the measurement of the base of the nose to the chin and base of nose to bottom of lower lip as compared to bottom of lower lip to chin, etc, etc.

Then he moves onto measuring the horizontal points compared to the vertical ones: how does the distance between the corner of the eyes compare to the distance between the chin to the base of the lip? What is the width of the eyes? Check the angle from the outer to the inner corners of the eye ( they are never straight across from each other!). He draws a plumbline from the inner corner of the eye down to determine the width of the nose. Interestingly, Bill squares up the lines of the face as much as possible at this stage, even using a brush edge to help him draw the jawline in a perfectly straight line, but at the correct angle. I knew this about painting apples or rocks for example, but had not really paid enough attention to it in portraiture.

Looking at Bill's finished paintings I was quite surprised how much time he took to take all the measurements and lay down their markings. His work has such a loose, painterly look to it, but it only shows how important good drawing is to make a great painting!

Once he was satisfied with the accuracy of his drawing (which was really only dots and suggestions of lines, not real features), he looked for the darkest dark, the lightest light and the sharpest edge and laid those in.

This allows him to compare all other values and edges to these extremes. Note that in the background Bill used blue as a complement to the orange skin tones and, using the Munsell Color Theory, added yellow/green and red/purple in equal amounts  on top. 

After almost being done and taking a break he promised he would add two little strokes that would make it all come alive and this was the result:

Could you tell what strokes they were? Yep, the highlight in the eyes (which by the way are not white, but light blue in this case. Always pay attention to the color and value of those highlights especially when eyes are shaded and may not even have any) and on the nose! You can also see in this picture how loose and suggestive Bill's strokes are and how he used a cooler color (two actually, purple and green) to turn the edge of Mike's nose on his right side and a warmer one on his left. There are no discernible lines for the eye lids, just strokes of color. Notice, too, where he softened the edges and left others sharper.

Here is the finished portrait of Mike:

I love that wonderful stroke of blue under the shirt collar, such strong mark making all around. The smudged edge on the underside of the right side of the hat (our left), the sharp line of the top edge of the brim leading us straight to the model's eyes, the patch of bright blue on the black hat. A seemingly simple portrait with so much to look at. A feast for the eyes!

If you'd like to take one of Bill's workshops yourself, check out his schedule on his website. I guarantee you will learn a lot!

One last note: I loved the fact that Bill took the pressure off that most of us feel (even he?) to produce a great painting every time we hit the studio or, God forbid, start thinking about doing demos ourselves by letting us know that not all of his attempts turn out well, either. In fact, he mentioned that the great and wonderful Richard Schmid, guru to many of us, has had unsuccessful demos! Who knew? If even HE can mess up, we can certainly allow ourselves to do just that. The only regret we should have is not painting enough to begin with. That said, enough long blog posts for a while. I have some painting to do!

I have loved the freshness of Margaret Dyer's work for years and was so excited to see her demo at the recent IAPS convention in Albuquerque! The topic was "Painting the Figure from Photos", so first off I'd like to talk about that controversial subject of painting from photos. I was very glad to hear Margaret echo some of my own sentiments. After many years of her working from life she switched to using photo references to add more life into her paintings of figures. So often when you see portraits or figures done from life they tend to look similar due to the constraints this method puts upon the model (having to hold a pose for a long time). Personally, I LOVE painting lots of emotion, laughter, joy, exuberance, even goofy faces, especially in my children's portraits. Those emotions cannot be sustained over long  hours of sitting! So often artists are made to feel guilty if we work from photos, but we need to be true to our own vision of what we want to create. That being said, please, notice that I said that Margaret has years of working from the live model under her belt and that makes all the difference. If you start out only working from photos it will always be a hinderance and a crutch. Even as a young child I started drawing my siblings from life as they watched TV and I have continued life drawing classes over the years or just practiced it at home using my daughters as models (when they were little I waited until they were sleeping) or drawing myself in the mirror during my many, many hotel stays. Most of those sketches do not end up framed and that's ok. It's a practice that must be kept up no matter the end result.

Experience drawing from life will help you correct the mistakes the photos inevitably hold. Values, colors, edges, all tend to be wrong in photos and only regular obersavtion from life will let you fix those in your painting.

But photos do let you capture poses and spontaneous moments that live sittings do not and like Margaret I thoroughly enjoy taking advantage of that. And like me she is not a great photographer but knows that she can work from slightly blurred, imperfect photos. It is NOT about perfectly copying a photo but using it as a reference to create a dynamic painting which she pulls off successfully time after time.

One more event that helped Margaret make the switch to photos without guilt was seeing a Degas exhibit in NYC which showed his paintings next to the black and white photo references! Who knew that even Degas' famous bathers were done using a photo reference?

We started the demo by following Margaret and her model Norah around the hotel lobby where the convention was held and out into the gardens. Margaret had Norah move continoulsy instead of holding a pose, but at a very slow pace. She asked her to move in a full circle and had her doing things like fix her hair, set a table with water glasses, carry a tray or fold large swaths of fabric. I loved this last idea especially because by doing those motions of holding up the fabric, simply folding it and laying it on the table beside her the model was giving us many different poses with her body, hands, arms, head and neck postures. She would stand or sit to fold, the fabric would flow, the light would be caught shining through the fabric and highlighting different parts of the model. Neither the model nor the artist had to think about what pose to assume next, she simply performed her task in a very slow, circular fashion. Already having had a photo shoot on my mind with a particular model I am very excited to have learned these seemingly simple tricks of the trade! I don't have to have all of the poses in mind before getting started, but I can let it develop organically as the model moves around comfortably. That may seem like a "duh" moment to many of you but was an "aha" moment for me. It must be the control freak in me that thought I had to have all the answers beforehand:)

Margaret shot about 230 photos in about 20 minutes (by the way, we were all allowed to take our own photos of the model as long as we tipped her, so I expect to see many of these as finished paintings posted on Facebook!) and then explained her process of choosing ones to paint from. Typically she might pick about 10-15 out of the lot. The selection process was not about finding the perfect ones with everything in focus, but rather the artist looks for the light and dark patterns (light, middle and dark values) throughout the picture including the background, under a chair, etc. To help you see it she reiterated the same mantra we have all heard for years, but still always need a reminder to do: SQUINT, SQUINT, SQUINT! It blocks out all the unneccassry details and shows you only what's truly important. So, as you choose a photo ask yourself: Do the patterns make a compelling composition? Does it give you that immediate emotional response? When the whole class went :"OOOOHHHH!" at one such picture Margaret had her reference to work from!

She projected the photo onto the wall next to her easel and began the drawing with compressed charcoal, very, very loosely, with large gestural strokes all across the paper which was of a middle value. She emphasized drawing the figure UNDERNEATH the clothing, not just the outlines of the clothes! The first lines are done with a light touch, the refinement of the drawing with heavier strokes.

She has a 7 step process she always adheres to:

1. Drawing

2. Find the lighting

3. Black

4. Darks

5. Lights

6. Middle Tones

7. Punctuation

To find the lighting she looks for the shadows all over, not just the figure, but the background as well, outlines them and then fills them in using a value just a little darker than the middle tone paper. Any color can be used, only value matters!

I apologize for the bad color and light in my photos, but I hope you get the idea.

Next is black, yes, true black! She uses that as her darkest dark and lays it in which then allows her to compare all of the other darks to this one and therefore get the correct values. Then she finds her other dark values:

She starts each with any color she likes and as she works will overlay that with the oppsoing temperature so that each value area sings with a variety of color. She maintains that you cannot make the dreaded mud by overlaying warms and cools and vice versa as long as they are of the same value. In the picture below you can see where she added browns to her first layers of blue greens and it works because they are of the same value (if you squint they disappear into each other).

She dances back and forth building her darks until they are saturated and vibrate with color. Margaret actually prefers using a landscape set of pastels in her figures rather than a portrait set to get more vibrant blues and greens. These unusual color combinations is what set her work apart from more traditional figure paintings. This woman is NOT afraid of color which is why I wanted to learn from her!

Next up were the lights for which she used a lovely grey/green overlaid later with a warm lavender, then yellow, back to blue and warm it up again with a pink. All of those colors end up being of the perfect value and "reading" like flesh tones. They mix visually on the paper since Margaret never blends with her fingers.

On to the middle values, where she started with bright orange, toned down with green. She advises to use the middle tones to transition from darks to lights (for instance on the arm from light to shadow) and used such colors as lavender, lime green and orange. She also uses middle tones to turn edges. The only time she mixes values is where there is reflected light (for example on the underside of the arms).

Here is the finished painting with a close up showing her dynamic mark making:

Again, please forgive the awful lighting and incorrect colors. A better idea of the colors are at the top of this post. I have a lot to learn about my camera and taking photos in dim lighting!

There is so much more I learned from Margaret but wanted to whet your appetite here. I highly recommend taking a workshop from her, which I intend to do in the future. She is funny, easy going and entertaining. Check out her workshop schedule here.

I'd like to share my process of portrait painting with you. First, let me address the photo issue: yes, I paint portraits mostly from photos and while I could write a whole essay about this controversial issue (yes, OF COURSE, painting from a live model is preferential and I still practice it regularly!), let me just say for now that I love capturing spontaneous moments full of emotion which cannot be held for a long pose from life. Especially when it comes to painting portraits of children I find it essential to use photography to capture their exuberance and personalities. To me a painting of a child sitting still while posing does nothing to capture the spirit or character of that child. As any parent knows, children hardly ever sit still, so I have no desire to capture them that way. In order to get good photos as references, I definitely prefer meeting the kids and taking the photos myself. This allows me to get to know them, view their coloring in a natural setting, observe them from all angles and interact with them in order to catch glimpses of their personality.

In the case of Abby, my model for "Reluctant Princess", I already knew her and had asked her and her brother to be my model for the day. With their mom's okay I brought along some props and shot lots of pictures (I hope to share more with you in the future). The moment I put that tiara on Abby's head (which I knew was against type), I knew I had the making of a painting! 

Back in my studio, I printed out an 8x11" copy of the best image. Since I work on Wallis sanded white museum paper which does not allow for easy erasing I prefer to get the drawing correct on a separate sheet of paper first and then transfer that to my painting surface using transfer paper (knowing that the basic likeness and proportions are correct allows me to focus on the values and colors during the actual painting process). I then retrace the lines with pastel pencils and spray them with fixative so I won't lose them in my next step: the underpainting (see image 1).

I then create an underpainting with watercolor (image 2), using bold colors, sometimes complementary to the local colors added later (for instance, in a green landscape I love using reds and oranges first which then sparkle through the green final layers). For skin tones I always use watercolor so I can still see my drawing underneath, but for background and clothing I sometimes use pastels which I wet with odorless turpenoid to create a wash.

The underpainting lets me get rid of the white of the paper and establish my palette and values very quickly. I usually go very bold with the colors during this step knowing I can always tone things down. This step also helps me to loosen up. The great thing about the medium of pastel is the forgiving nature of it. Just about anything can be fixed, covered, redone. It certainly eases the fear of that blank paper!

Also, the underpainting can help me envision where I want to go with the background if I don't have a plan for this yet, as was the case here. Sometimes, I have a complete plan in mind for the finished image, but if I don't, seeing the subject outside of the photo, enlarged in my composition with some color added, most often inspires the next steps. At this point, while I was waiting for the watercolor wash to dry, a bright pink background kept popping into my mind, but thankfully I pushed that aside and settled on a grey/green background that would let Abby's hair and face be the focus (image 3).

As you can see I started adding dry pastel over the watercolor in the hair and face.

I decided the background needed something more and added a darker value of the grey/green to really bring out the tiara and sunlit face. I used an opposing diagonal to the one already created by her pose to create an X composition which brings contrast and balance to the painting at the same time and adds interest (image 4).

Image 4 also shows broad strokes of pastel added everywhere excpet the tiara, which I saved for last (wanting to firmly establish the hair first). To create harmony I add touches of the background color to the hair and skin, but in this case I decided to leave the background color untouched by anything other than that beautiful grey/green (one of my favorite colors among my hundreds of pastel sticks). Usually it's a good idea to add some of the subject's colors into the background as well, but rules are meant to be broken sometimes!

In image 5 you can see that I changed the line in the background, refined the eyes and started to blend the many colors found in the skintones. I very lightly blend with fingers in some areas, but more often use the pastels sticks themselves to blend the edges where different colors meet. Pastel pensils can also be used to lightly hatch across areas of softer pastel to blend them. I tend to blend more in children's portraits than adults because their skin is naturally so much smoother. After everything else was pretty much done, I tackled the tiara which required keen obersavtion and patience. I wanted to create a realistic look without overdoing it and still staying pretty loose. As you can see in the close up, the tiara is painted in strokes of color barely indicating the individual rhinestones, but by paying close attention to the values and directions of the strokes it ultimately created a realistic look.

 I also made the t-shirt much darker and added loose strands of individual hairs with a pastel pencil or sharpened hard pastel stick. I checked and double checked the values and likeness in mirrors (I have one large one by my easel and also use a hand held old compact mirror) and from a distance of at least 10 feet. You can see the finished portrait at the top of this post and again below: