05 December 2008

self

Watercolor & charcoal on Arches CP 300gsm, 14" x 10".

this is the first time i've tried an object tracing as the basis for a drawing.

i laid the glasses on the paper and traced the outside contour with carbon pencil, then added the interior contour. then the whole face was drawn using the glasses as proportional references.

background is cobalt turquoise and cadmium yellow; shirt is ultramarine blue; flesh is manganese violet and raw sienna, darkened with burnt sienna, hair is ultramarine and burnt sienna. glass frames are burnt umber and cadmium red.

3 comments:

Adam Cope said...

Like this one, the intellignec & attentiveness is apparent.

Bruce - is the tee shirt really ultramarine? Is it an ultramarine red shade?

I've found such difficulties in phtographing & getting a screen jpag for ultra RS (Winsor & Newton). It's such a wonderful colour but on the screen always looks - well - blue & not thta slight shift to red I see in real life.

Could not the master of wc instruction & colour info not do a short piece on photographing paintings & screen calibration? It seems that getting the delicate & fine tones of wc isn't easy.

best.

Bruce said...

i'd certainly post a tutorial on photographing paintings and color balancing the digital images, if i didn't struggle so much with the process.

in this example, i can't show a purplish ultramarine without making the background green appear too gray.

i've followed advice from several painters about how to photograph works, and i still can't get results that accurately represent the originals.

Adam Cope said...

Hmmmmm

IMO, the vital colour balance in this wc is the co-respondence between the blue of your eyes & the blue of the tee shirt. Personally, I'd cull the green for an ultra RS.

But then it's always dangerous the advice of other people & fiddling about with hue in PS. hence screen calibration & good exposure first off, no?

paint on Bruce!