Journal of My Oil Painting Techniques

I had a model(Autumn) this evening for a couple of hour sitting.  I did a monochrome oil portrait instead of using the colors because I don’t like to use colors without the natural daylight.  I find it very difficult to distinguish correct color hue and saturation without the natural light, so I only paint with full colors during the daylight hours.

I wanted to do a charcoal drawing but i had run out of papers, so I decided to do a painting using only the burnt umber.As usual, I started this oil portrait by dabbing on globs of thick paint as if a sculptor would start attaching large pieces of clay to start his clay model. From there I proceeded to gradually define the form and modelling the head. I started out focusing on the large forms and shapes and worked towards smaller details, inserting the eyes, and the other features, then working on more details within those features.

I evaporated outward from the face to cover up the entire canvas, adding more details and important indications. I smoothed out and blended a lot of the areas of the face and also increased the value range to give more contrast, by hitting the darkest darks accents in the eyes as well as lightest light highlights on the tip of the nose, etc. Even though I pretty much overed up the entire surface of the canvas, I consider this just a lay-in. I have asked Autumn to come back so I can refine and polish up on this oil portrait some more.

Today I worked on this figure painting from life.  I first made a very accurate small drawing then transferred it onto the canvas. I used to start drawing directly on the canvas but I recently found it easier and less time consuming if you prepare a preliminary small drawing beforehand. Also I find it easier to get the accuracies when working small.

After the outlines were traced onto the canvas, I began dabbing on the colors from there. Even though I had the accurate outlines down, I tried not to rely on it or fill it in, but used thick paints and sculpted and modelled the forms as I went. I also tried not to be afraid to alter things if I felt that changes were necessary.

I mostly used the large brushes for this figure painting. I tried to keep the brushes  as large possible, using the points and edges of them to do the details. I find that this technique produces better sculptural results then using the small brushes for small details.

I focused on keeping the paint fairly thick to overcome the ripple-like texture of the canvas and create my own texture with the paint, whether it may be smooth or rough. I try to keep the thickness of the paints equal all over the canvas rather than painting thin on one area and thick on others. Even in the shadowy transparent area I prefer to use thick paint as I have on the light side areas, and try to create the transparent illusion by the use of colors or saturation istead of actually applying the thin layer of paint.

Unfortunately for me, the session ended before I could even cover up the whole surface of the canvas. I will resume with the figure painting when she returns.

Below is my model Brittney checking herself out at the end of the session