Whitaker's Waltz: Cindy
 

Let's do it with Cindy too because I want Linda B. to show us what she did with Cindy - it's really great!

Here is my version of Cindy - I had an almost straight side pose and not nearly enough time. :)

Michael, you are being very kind, especially to somebody who crashed into your palette every five minutes.

Congratulations on your very accurate painting of Cindy.

Here's mine:

See, now look at that, isn't that just lovely? Linda, you and Chris have a wonderful grace to your paintings that I just really admire.

I have one word for that portrait you did and that word is:

**FABOO** :D

Michael,

Great job on the painting! You and Linda.

I noticed that in most of your paintings that I have seen, that your technique is that your brush strokes do not appear to be visible, very smooth. In the painting shown above they are very loose, I'm sure due to the given amount of time.

My question, is it difficult for you to make that creative shift from a more refined technique to a "loosely" painted look? How do you prepare yourself mentally to make this shift?

I've tried many times to "loosen up" with my painting but seem to fall back into looking for details and overworking. Maybe it's just my "style" for lack of a better word.

Hope this makes sense.

Mike:

Yes yes, you are absolutely right! I am so tight I squeek and it drives me crazy sometimes. Bill had us doing something he calls "broken color" as part of the painter's dance where you lay in one or two strokes and leave them, step back, mix another color, step forward and make one or two more strokes and leave them, step back, repeat. The point is that you work all over the painting at once and you lay strokes down and leave them. It was hard for me. On Cindy, what you see is actually somewhat broken up again as I went back in on the last day after I had done some smoothing out and finishing and began laying in that broken color again.

I will still do my commissioned portraits very tight as that is how I am most comfortable, but I intend to continue working from life and trying to fight the "tight" in my style. :)

Yep and guess who was stuck in between them?

I had to plead with the ice cream gang to come up and tell me how wonderful my work was even if they were lying. Chris and Linda were both so good, I became the invisible woman, and I think I'll keep my "Cindy" that way! :oops:

I know it wasn't a competition and I must admit it was an honor to be near them.

Cindy is posted at my link.

This is so neat!
 

I'm so glad that all of you are posting your work from the workshop. What I find amazing is that all of the work is very obviously the same person and easily recognized. But each has its stamp of the individual artist.

Michael, I know what you mean about "tight". Sometimes I get so wrapped up in detail that I forget the whole. But, since I love your work the way it is, I can only see good come from your experience at this workshop.

Linda, yours is beautiful, so soft looking. Will you be doing more on it or leaving it as is? It looks finished to me. How did you like using a different technique? Or since your work is so soft anyway was it comfortable?

Beth, you're a chicken! Come on, your Les is so nice I can't imagine that there is nothing of value in Cindy.

Feeling green with envy,
Jean

Okay Jean, I won't be a chicken.

I had to scrape the paint off of this canvas at least 4 times. I had such a hard time with the left side of her face.

I couldn't believe I could have had part of a Whitaker original after Bill helped me on day 3, but on day 4 I scraped it off again. Of course I had managed to mess up his genius.

So essentially this is 1 1/2 days work. And if I would have had more days, her face would have been as huge as the statute of Saddam that tumbled. Linda did her best to keep me under control!

Beth,

You are too funny.

Michael,

Perhaps you might want to elaborate on the two very different processes at play in your portfolio work and your portraits-from-life work. The underpainting, by its nature, seems to result in a much higher degree of 'finish', n'est-ce pas?

BTW I will post my Cindy when I get the chance. And, thank you for your very kind and generous mention!

Beth,

It was a dramatic moment when the other artists took off their shoes and started hitting your painting with them.

You are fun to needle.

It's true. I am an underpainter by nature. Further, I am a pickey underpainter who likes his underpainting to look just like a finished work - thank you very much. It was a wonderful way to start, but it is proving harder to leave. Even when I work directly in color without a monochrome underpainting I still hear the voices..."tighter, tighter...blend, blend..." they say.

So, this method of broken color was just what the doctor ordered. The thing I admire about this method is that you begin quite loose and free and gradually bring it up. This allows you to leave areas more unfinished and bring things like faces up to very tight finish. This adds variety to the work and makes it more interesting, IMO. Bill does it very well and you can see it in a lot of his works. Chris and Linda do it well too. I am trying to use this broken color method to teach myself how to make things more loose in my work.

:D

But seriously, Beth,

I think you have a very good painting there. The drawing is truly dead-on, and if you had more time you would have brought out more of a finish to the paint quality. I really admired your determination during the workshop and your refusal to give up until you got it right. You're a real trouper.

Jean,

Thanks for your kind words. I'm not sure, actually, how to catagorize this kind of painting. It's not strictly wet-into-wet, nor is it glazing over a monotone underpainting. The lead white (love it) and the Maroger (love it, sorry Marvin) accellerates drying so that you can go over it the next day, scraping or sanding down any rough edges, before the next layer. Unlike Liquin or retouch varnish, Maroger leaves a ... what's the word I want... WELCOMING surface to visit the next day.

Paint is initially put on in patches which helps you make value and color decisions before you have to address edge control and blending. Maximum control, yet the time and space to leave alone any 'happy accidents'. By the way, there was a LOT of paint on my canvas compared to how I usually paint. This surprised me.

Also, Bill spent a lot of time talking about such matters as paint quality and paint presence. So much to think about.

Beth, don't be so shy! That's one beautiful, solid head! And sometimes the only way to get there is to scrape away hours of work. Beautiful.

I am thoroughly enjoying all the workshop postings. I see such strong work here. Linda, when you get a chance, please elaborate on some of those terms Bill used. Paint presence. I like that.

And here's my (also unfinished) "Cindy." Fascinating to see what others did online, even though I saw all of these firsthand--I stood just to Linda's right for the whole week while working on this.

Correction
 

I really should have said (as you can see above), not only did I have to stand inbetween Linda and Chris, I had to be near Michael and Gary! Who got their shares of oh's and ah's! (Deservingly so!)

Now Randy and Patrick were a little further from me in our group, so I didn't get to hear all the comments going on over on that side!

You can see from this thread, how great it was to watch the canvas of others progress, it too was a great learning experience. :)

This is a treat for Linda:

Bravo Beth
 

I second Mari's comments. You have nothing to be embarassed about, she looks very pleasing. So what if you had to work hard, that's what you went for (to learn)! Just reading the posts has been a remarkable learning experience for me. Thank you all.

Jean

;) Beth, your Cindy is wonderful. The group at Marvin's workshop in Carolina will have someone else to rib and throw shoes at. ME! Still got the weebie-jeebies or something like that. Any ideas or advice on keeping your cool and how not to shrink in a corner at these workshops? Ha.

And Michael, I am in no way comparing my art to yours, but have to admit I can relate to your description of tight, tight, tight. I have the very same problem (if it is considered a problem or a no-no) in painting. The paintings which are very tight really do not bother me. But I have seen tight blending - rather overblending - and IMO, the skin tones appear to be waxy or too shiny and unreal. Therefore, this adds to the above mentioned fear of workshops due to the fact that it is usually fast paced compared to the way I work. Wish me luck at Marvin's.

Patt, this is a little off topic, but there are a couple of excellent threads on preparing for a workshop.

I can see Bill Whitaker's lessons on every one of the images posted in both workshop threads. There are clues to show which work belongs to which artists (the asphaltum gave your Cindy away for me, Michael). Here was a group of serious students who excelled because they very elementally bonded with the master, allowed him in their heads, and focused on doing exactly what he was telling them to do.

Hi Gary,

I had my eye on your work the whole time. You are such a strong, intense and focused artist and your terrific 'Cindy' is strong and intense as well. I find it so interesting that you brought out qualities in our model that others didn't. Thanks for posting this.

Hello again, Linda--

Thanks for persuading me to look in here from time to time. I enjoy it.

Strong, intense, and focused, eh?

Thanks for being so kind. Actually, as you know, I found painting from life really tough. Like Beth, it felt like a titanic struggle to me the whole time. :)

Good to see part of the gang in here. I was on the other end of the room from these guys, and had a setup similar to Beth

(Extremely) Unfinished Portrait of Cindy
 

This is really showing broken color! Or is it chicken pox? This is the other model in Bill's class, Cindy.

Linda

Cindy Detail (unfinished)
 

And when you thought it couldn't get any scarier, here's the close up.

Linda

It' so much fun to see everyone's work! By Friday, my brain was so overloaded, there was no way I could take in all of your fresh, wonderfully rich images (plus the room was pretty dark).

The detail. Perhaps you can see my "technique" of sort of applying Flake white (left handed, evidently, with an old rusty spackle knife - note the irregular vertical stripes) which prompted Bill to say, "Chris, let's pretend that you have a nicely prepared surface..."

I sanded and sanded but nothing good happened to the surface.

Shhhhhh Chris.... Let's not tell Bill.... I don't think he realizes that. :bewildere

We had a more similar view than I thought.

Carl

Carl: Welcome to the Forum! Dark!? Dark!? I wasn't dark, it was a "Gloomy Art Tomb". :)

Thanks, Michael. Yes, since I forgot my Army surplus night vision Goggles at home, I only survived because of the magnifying glass and flashlight Beth taped to my easel when I wasn't looking (it's taped to my easel at home now Beth, thanks). I think Bill's eyeballs jumped out of his head and popped back in when he saw them taped on the easel.

I'm pleased no one pulled little Mummy cases out of any secret compartments in the gloom, for us to place our canvases in at the end of the day.

I'm also am sure I saw the wall of the east end slide back for a few seconds on Tuesday, to reveal Abbot and Costello scrambling away from a large figure bound up head to toe in moldy rags :o (you young 'uns will probably have no idea who I'm talking about).

I'm kidding around, Bill. In actuality the light started to bring out hints of a wide variety of color temperature in the model, as I adapted more and more to the lower natural light.

At first the shadows just looked straight gray to me, then I began to see how I could push the subtle differences in them more, and use the color hints contained in them. Towards the end, I could tell that given additional time in the saddle with north light, I would continue to see how to better use it to advantage.

Bill is correctly very strong on the positive values of North Light on flesh tones, but it's a bit of a large change for people like me, used to plenty of electric illumination.

Tales From the Crypt
 

Carl and Linda,

Greetings, denizens of the Far Side. Happy to see you posting your wonderful paintings. They really are terrific, and I'm starting to think I should delete mine and go work on it some more.

By the way, Carl, please go and post your hand-held palette for us (on a Tools and Materials thread) so that we can all get a closer look at it.

Michael,

Atypical?

Thanks Linda B.
 

For your overly kind words. (I know you were talking to me because I'm the only other Linda posting pictures on this thread!)

When I look at everyone's work, I know why I don't like to upload pictures!! Sigh.

And Carl, yes, please post pics of your arm palette, and remember I am first on the list if and when you decide to take orders!

Linda

Chris, what I really like
 

On your portrait of Cindy is that you have a great feeling of the planes and angles - the structure of her face.

Very good. In spite of the rusty palette knife :)

Linda

She's a dancing machine!
 

Linda F., I love your color and strokes. I think you really got the dance down. Did you read David Leffel's book with the pears on the cover? Your style in this unfinished piece remind me of his.

I think bold color is so great, it brings out not only the strength and character of these strong models, but that of the artist too! :thumbsup:

No one is tossing shoes here!

Patt, Linda B. is right, when we are back from Marvin's...total domination. You poor guys have to suffer through Tim's with me too!

I can't wait! :)

Beth, where do I
 

send your payment? LOL

Thank you for your nice words. I'm so jealous about your upcoming workshop(s). Wish I could go. What fun we'd have.

Linda

PS No, I haven't read Leffel's book. He's another one whose workshop I'd like to take.

Hi Linda,

In case you weren't aware, books like David Leffel's are available for purchase through this site. I have the book and I highly recommend it.

The SOG Forum owner, Cynthia Daniel gets a small percentage when you order books by clicking on a link from her site. (Leffel's book happens to be one of the ones featured at the left of this page, the one with the green pears and green vase.)

Thanks Michele
 

Appreciate the info.

Linda

Linda B.

I took you up on posting my palette. The link is here:
http://forum.portraitartist.com/show...&threadid=2741

I hope this was the proper place for it on the Forum.

Carl