Riley and Skeepee

Merry Christmas Synans!
I need a new project now that this portrait is finished. Maybe I'll start painting a pet a day project. The painting looks bluer in this post than it is in real life. Could be that I took the picture inside instead of out.

Today, I worked on shaping Skeepee's head. I think it looks better--it's more 3-D and less illustrative than the previous stage which was kind of cute. And, I realized that her body comes up higher next to her ear, so that gave her more weight. Her whiskers are drawn at the wrong angle,they need to be parallel with the bottom of the canvas so that she's resting on a cushion.

I used a medium matte glaze today which is new for me. I don't know if the paint + medium will run the way it does with water washes, so I'll be experimenting with that. Today, I put Titanium white and medium over much of the fabric. I read that I should use Zinc white instead.

I don't usually work one area of the painting a time, either, but for some reason, I felt I needed to get the cat right first. Many painters start with the whole background and then lay color all over the canvas, but some painters seems to work from the top down. If this were a landscape, then it would be sky, mountains, meadow, and grass.


The clock is ticking. Gotta finish this before school starts.

Riley and Skeepee portrait

After transferring my pencil drawing to canvas to preserve accuracy of the figures, I discovered that Skeepee was too far over to the right so if the painting were framed, her ear would be cut off.
So much for painstakingly transferring the drawing once and then a second time and still not getting it right. To make the correction, using my brush, I blocked in the cat, and now I wonder if the eyes are too big. Maybe someone else can tell me. Or, as usually happens, I'll figure out my answer after studying the images (photo and painting) side-by-side for a while. I think that the weight of the kitty's head creates a different shape as well. I'll have to fix that. And, I'll have to study how the arm would fall since there is less space between her head and Riley's. Should have used a ruler to check width of Skeepee's body when I decided to use a smaller canvas and consequently have to move closer to Riley.

Riley and Skeepee study

Checking to see if this composition will look nice on 8 x10" canvas. First try at drawing a cat. Bone structure very different from dogs and humans. Next time, when I shoot white paper, use the flash...

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PATRON FOR THE ARTS
AND MODEL
FOR BELCHERTOWN PAINTER.


Commissioned portraits available.

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David and Deborah 15th Anniversary

Palette: skin tone: Naples yellow, Titanium White, Cad Yellow Medium, Cadmium Red, Permanent Rose (David) and more Cad. Yellow Med (Deborah); fabric: Paine's Grey, Permanent Rose, T. White, and Alizarin Crimson (Davids' robe). Background: White, Cobalt Blue, Cad. Yellow Med. Payne's Grey.

David and Deborah 15th Anniversary

Am I finished?

Today, I worked on David's hands, the background, the shape of the top of his head, and clothing all the while thinking about color.

According to my research, hands convey a lot of personality and can be as important as any part of the person, so I was aware that I was in for a lot of work. Julia had said that Daid had "monster hands" before this version--I think that spurred me on as I painted. I didn't want the hands to be a focal point, yet they are the closest part of the portrait to the viewer. I think that I may have done a good job, even though no one would say, "Oh, you captured David's hands--I'd know them any where." Hands are as big as a face, fingers are divided into equal segments at the joints and are different lengths. Knowing all of this can help--but I'm certain that a live model for portraiture would make painting much easier than using a photograph exclusively.

Not a Portrait

A little break from portraits. A painting for Fran, Sheryl's mom, of Queeche after rain. Eric Sacon took a photo which I used as reference.

Here's Johnny--I mean David

Adjustment, adjustment. Today, I worked on layering flesh colors without any light on over the canvas.
I think that this technique helped me mute the shadows a lot. David's nose was a bit too wide so I had to move his eye, on the right as I view his face, over to the left.

My face is rounder in this new version, a nod to the Bernstein side.

I'm not sure about the yellow in the background.

I'm really happy with my painting session today especially since, at moments, I enjoyed using thick paint instead of delicate glazes. I love that. Something about David's head looks like Johnny Carson--but I'm not complaining!

Today I measured the photograph to help me make adjustments and repaint David's head. I used cobalt blue, cad yellow, and paine's grey for his forehead after discovering that lightening his eyes to green made an impression on me. Though the coloring makes him seem older, I think, it's better than the color of the last stage of the painting. The intensity of his expression is off--he is much friendlier-looking in the photo than in the portrait.

My portrait in process, and one by a mysterious artist. The portrait of Grammy came to me with a crisp fold. One day I may have it framed anyway. For anyone reading this, never fold art in half!

Okay. So many things wrong here. I think that I adjusted the tilt of David's head. He has a lot of forehead in the photo, but maybe not enough here.
The eyes seem too large. It's amazing how a tiny distinction throws resemblance completely off.

When I draw myself, I always see my grandmother, whether others would too, I don't know. Looks like I have squirrel cheeks.

Bone structure beneath skin if too dark makes the face distorted.

Decided to paint a picture of my niece who is 8 months old in this picture. Ava was so animated at my daughter Julia's birthday party that she took all the best pictures. The way her eyebrow curves, the breath I can nearly feel as I look at her mouth captured me, but the painting doesn't show this at all.

My first mistake was probably tracing the picture instead of measuring and drawing. First of all, this is wicked cheating. Secondly, as I painted I felt like it was a bit like paint-by- numbers--just coloring in shapes, especially with her hand and arm. Blue over pink on her face seems to work--some. Making the fabric look like real fabric meant simplify, simplify and paint by dabbing.

When I come back to this painting, more layering of light colors is needed--and more light from the right side of the picture.

Julia and her Best Friend

Julia doesn't look like Julia perhaps becuase the light in her eyes is in the wrong place and the shadow above her eye is too dark. Augie looks fantastic, however. He's a noble dog! Now I can see that Julia's face is too big--that is throwing off her resemblance.

This is Julia's still-life from the yurt. This portrait reminds me of the Lion King.

Alpacas Away!

Another first portrait is really another pet, an alpaca from the farm in Belchertown. I took several young painters, ages 10-12 to the farm the summer of 2009 and we painted in the yurt. Kids did mostly still-life, but some, like me, ventured into the yard to stand in the field with the animals. I watched this alpaca for hours, posing quietly, watching me. The best model I ever worked with.

I took a long time on his face. An earlier version showed a different anatomy all together; here I've shortened the jaw, making him much cuter and young looking.

Maira 2009

Here she is. Her coat in the painting isn't anything like her actual fur, but I was so excited that the portrait was realistic and lively that I just kept painting until I felt the colors worked. Even though the angle of her face isn't quite right and her snout is elongated, the painting still feels like Maira.

Portrait painting

My name is Deborah Sacon and I've been painting and drawing more off than on for 30+ years. During the school year, I teach English and summer is my time to paint. It's taken me all this time to realize that I really need to paint to keep my soul full of life. Chronicling my paintings, I hope, will allow me to see growth in my work. Keeping a blog is brand new to me and feels pretty self-indulgent, I am self-conscious as I write this, but do so hoping that other artists, like me, will find me and participate in the conversation about making art.

In June, after having made my first painted portrait--what felt like the first portrait that I ever painted--I determined that I need to study a lot harder if I want to make REAL portrait--the sort that breathes life, that resembles the subject, is painterly and beautiful.
I'm calling "My First Portrait-ever" the one that I did of Julia and Augie ("Julia and Her Best Friend").
Being a watercolorist and landscape painter and not using oils or acrylics kept me away from the portrait as subject for the most part. I created a small egg tempera sketch one time, of a girl with a lantern, copied from a Sargeant painting, and posted here.


So I've been painting portraits with acrylics and I'm learning a lot after not having drawn faces--or figures--in about 20 years! I can remember drawing Kim Kincaid in pencil and how I worked FOREVER to get her likeness correct. Were it not for the teacher, I don't think it would have resembled her. One day, I'll look for that drawing and post it here.

I have a few finished portraits of animals to date and 3 portraits of people in the works. Some that I call finished, don't feel finished and certainly are not publishable, as in the finished sense. For my purposes here, I'm concerned with process, not product anyway.

My best works seem to be animals--not surprising since I painted cows and horses when at UMASS in the Fine Arts program. Maira, my neighbor's dog, is my favorite painting so far. It's bitter-sweet to look at the picture. I gave the portrait to Maira's owner because Maira is sick and I wanted him to have a picture of her healthiest summer. She loved being photographed that day so the painting has the life she has.