Constructing a Portrait

Start at Mouth

AKA  The Post Workshop Recovery

I am still recovering from my portrait and gesture workshop last week. I call it the "Ow! My brain" workshop. I  would go home after the workshop at night, walk the dogs and then settle in for an hour of HGTV, just to decompress!

For Artists the best workshops force you to concentrate & focus, learning new thoughts and ideas and starts. How many people start the portrait with the mouth (not eyes, not nose)? That was such a challenge to start the portrait with the mouth line, oh my! And yet, from mouth to nose to eye, I think I captured a likeness in my drawing--yes this drawing on the right was started at the mouth and then nose then left eye!

Here are some "warm up" drawings. We did eye, mouth and nose each from right side, front , and left side. I know it is hard to see the words written there, but one of my favorite exercises was to write the shape descriptions of the feature that you see. As a Visual artist, writing the words to describe the shape of the mouth instead of drawing is a tremendous brain challenge! I did the written descriptor challenge for each face section (mouth, eye, nose)--hence the "Ow My Brain." And here I challenge you to take a workshop that will challenge you!

Warrior Maiden, painted pre-workshop

As you know, lately I have been flirting with unfinished paintings. I go to live portrait sessions (uninstructed) each week and we always have such limited time, about 2.5 hours. I paint fairly quickly and I am learning when to stop so I do not overwork my subject.

Typically pre-workshop I started a portrait with a vertical-ish line for head tilt and then I add horizontal lines for eyes, bottom of nose, and mouth and top of head. Then I add vertical lines for long and short side of face. While I filled in most of my lines with paint, I did leave a few out in this unfinished work. I can and will overwork a painting.

In person the skin tone and mouth of this portrait have a bright luminosity which I love. This particular portrait does not accurately reflect the model, her eyes are slightly smaller, but I still like how this came out. Although I have to state that after my portrait workshop I will look more closely and concentrate more strongly on features. I named this Warrior Maiden as she has an Athena quality and look to her doesn't she?

The good things I see include the warm coral lip colors, the bright greens in the headpiece and the leaf shadows on her forehead. While she was in a white flowy top, I left the white canvas there to represent the top  strap and I feel that what I left out is really nice, this unfinished one is done!