Portrait Sketching

A portrait study from the other day, It's a copy from a John Bradshaw Crandall painting.

Tom Lovell Studies

I've been making my way through my new (incredible) Tom Lovell book. I'm amazed at how simple he keeps his compositions. Everything seems to be kept within 4 simple tones: Black, dark grey, light grey, and white. So, I've been going through the book and every time I see a really stunning composition, I do a quick little marker study. Here's one:

Halloween Still Life

A little still life I did of some Halloween decorations. Painted in gouache in my watercolor sketchbook. I tried a random pre-painted background of acrylic red, Then black, white, yellow ochre and I think burnt sienna. I tried to only use warm colors and let the black and white fill in for the cooler colors. I remember looking at the purple fabric underneath everything and having no idea how I would paint it. Its a little red (burnt sienna) mixed with the black and white. I think it looks purple. I was very happy about that, it felt like magic.

The Gardens of Selene

Gardens of Selene

Some close-ups:

monks and swans detail

Here's a painting I just finished. A few people asked me about the process, so I wanted to show a few of the steps on here.



Step 0:

I basically wanted some huge archways overlooking the ocean, very open and plenty of plants. I got the idea of an inside gardens/ plants with big architecture from Biltmore after visiting a few years ago and have been thinking about it ever since. It slowly got more and more Roman. I started developing a story and a setting as I was working, so certain things began to make more sense than others.


Step 1:

Quick thumbnail sketches. I did a few more, but they're all just very sketchy.

Step 2.
After some research, I built a 3d model in Sketchup and played around with a few different viewpoints.

Step 3.

More sketching.  Playing around with lighting and color, also materials and decoration etc.

Step 4.

Rough drawing over the 3d model, just trying to start deciding on things.

Step 5.

Finished drawing over the rough drawing. Although even the finished drawing is pretty rough. I knew I would change a lot later. I didn't bother with people or plants yet because where I put those would probably depend more on color.



Step 6.
Quick black and white sketch to figure out lighting (again) I liked this lighting better than the soft lighting of my earlier sketches.



Step 7.
I built a little model out of cardboard, Sculpey, and some grill skewers (?) that I found, then painted it and brought it outside. Snapped a few pictures and just stared at it for a long time, also tried a few different angles.



 

Step 8.

Shadow perspective. Because I did the shadows with a real model, I had to map them out in perspective myself. I think most artists probably do this in the 3d model, because its much faster. I kind of just wanted to test myself and do it manually.



Step 9.

Gather tons of reference for everything. Although I had been doing this the whole time,  I like to try and have as much as I can ready so I don't have to keep stopping during the painting... of course that happens anyway though. This is my file in PureRef, a reference program.




Step 10.

Paint. Erase. Sketch. Paint. Delete. Edit. Paint. Paint. Rage Quit. Paint. Finish. Paint again. Paint. Edit. Finish. Sketch. Paint.

I like to just paint on one layer except for the greenery and people so I can move them around. So 3 layers, and I do that all under a slowly disappearing finished drawing. I turn on the perspective layers as needed too. Towards the end I added a couple other fancy layers.


Let me know if you have any other questions about the process in the comments.