Free Oil Painting Lessons

The Red Scarf

By Robert Bissett

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Reference Material

Coming around the corner I was struck by the natural pose and backlighting.  I happened to have a camera and equested she hold right there.  Several shots were taken at the 1mb setting and this first one seemed to have the most promise.  The resolution was increased in PaintShop Pro which helped, but it still was not a professional quality photo.  A lot of very good artists would not attempt a portrait with anything less than first class reference photos.  As a general rule that is the right attitude.  In this case I've known the model a long time and think I can break that rule successfully.  We'll see.

Day One

I have prepared a plastered panel 48" x 24" and given it two or three coats of acrylic gesso tinted yellow. I'm starting this with acrylic paint and will switch to oils in the final stages.  In each painting I try to explore a new idea or technique.  As part of my on-going professional studies program I recently read a great book called The Yin/Yang of Painting by Hongnian Zhang.

He uses one of three palettes of color:
red/green, blue/orange or yellow/purple.  For this I will use the red/green palette because of the red scarf. I will have a spectrum or true red and green, plus a warm and a cool version of each and black and white. All the colors in the painting will be mixed from these few and will as a result have a family resemblance. Does that mean there will be no blues, for example?  Actually a grey-blue can be mixed using the cool red and the cool green.  The red and green will grey one another allowing the blue that each has to show once mixed with white.

After careful cropping and composing the major outlines are transferred to the panel.  The wash in is done with my first attempt at mixing the colors I'm looking for and a fair amount of water.  I want to cover the panel and see how these colors relate to each other.  I'm also abstracting the background to focus attention on the figure and her face.  This palette is new to me and I'm finding it is a little tricky to produce the beautiful grays, but I'm learning fast.

Day Two

Now I'm able to see all the proposed colors and judge how well they are working together.  On this second pass all colors and values are adjusted as are the shapes of each area.  Much closer this time.

Day Three

I'm far enough that I need to focus on the face and the areas next to the face since that is what this painting is about.  I realize the face is too light to appear backlit, so I make it darker.  Once the focal point is right the rest of the painting can be adjusted to be subordinate, but supporting.

Day Four

I like the values and color relationships generally.  I've taken the face about as far as I care to in acrylic so it's time to switch to oils for the final adjustments and corrections.

To be continued...