Guilty Pleasures
 

Hi, all!

This thread is just for the pure fun of it:

What is/are your painting "Guilty Pleasures?" What do you like to paint as often as you can and can't seem to ever tire of? What do you try to sneak into paintings just for the pure visceral joy of doing it over and over? What never ceases to thrill you painting-wise, and that you would do to death if you could get away with it?

For example, one of mine is the red/orange light that comes through kids' ears when they're backlit outside. I almost always overstate the chroma of it, just because I love it so and, well, I just can't help it!!!

Whew, there, I feel so much better now that it's out. Anyone else?

The "eyes" have it!
 

The eyes. I love painting the extremely dark pupil of the eye and following it up with a glare on one side and adding that bright highlight in the upper corner of the pupil. Can anyone think of any other aspect of the portrait that is easier to obtain a more realistic effect?

Gotta' go paint some eyes now!

Great topic Tom.

I love to use what Bill Whitaker termed my "juicy" brushwork. In the past I never used this technique, however, and you won't see it in any of the paintings on my site. I don't think I was skilled enough to bring it off properly before.

My latest paintings are starting to show some more free flowing paint though (see the critique thread of Ben and Samantha) and I can hardly wait to do more!

The upper eyelid totally grabs me. I always want to make it more pronounced and taller than it probably is, and I give a little yelp of joy at the end if I get to stroke a highlight there.

1. "Skyholes" of light emerging behind the tangled, random ends of dark hair. Burt Silverman does this often in his paintings. He's wonderful at it.

2. The pink sliver of the lower lid edge as it meets the eyeball.

3. The protruding middle of the upper lip, directly under the philtrum. I love seeing this on a mouth.

Who else but portrait painters can talk about stuff like this? Thanks for starting this topic, Tom!

Muscles and tendons
 

Some day I'm going to paint body builders, male and female or any well developed athletes, gymnasts, runners, dancers etc.

Jean

Nobody! I've given up trying to explain to the local barflies the most interesting nostril I drew this week. And, I've learned to turn the cd player up so my husband can no longer hear me maniacally humming "Getting to Know You" while I'm modeling a face!

The ends of noses! I love to labor over the different shapes the cartilage makes.

Next, it would certainly be the whites of the eyes - catching all the wonderful colors and reflections.

Yummy!
 

Highlights on curly locks of hair.

Okay, Lisa, Linda and Beth, I'll get you guys to paint my eyelids and noses for me (since I'd rather not do them at all!) but Marvin, I'll keep the highlights on curly hair for myself. That's one of my favorite things to paint too.

Mike-

I knew catchlights in eyes would come up pretty fast.

Daniel Greene tells of painting $5.00 portraits as a teenager on the beach boardwalk in Florida, and when he'd drop in the catchlights, anyone watching would invariably go "Oooooooooh..."

Reflected light
 

What a fun topic Tom! I love to paint reflected light. I love how that thin slice of color, and it doesn't matter what color, just makes the features pop. I have to stop myself from adding it too early in a painting, and have a tendency to make them too light. And, like Beth, I enjoy painting the tip of the nose.

Renee Price

Lips
 

Eyelashes and lips actually,

I guess like all little girls, I like to put the lipstick on. Really, just painting the lips is the icing on the cake for me. Lip shapes are invariably so subtle and unique and make all the difference. We all know what Sargent said....

The eyelashes, what little of them we're allowed to apply and still keep a respectable woman respectable, are my next favorite part of a painting. The tendency to overdo, of course is my problem.

Miss you Tom!!

The eyes have it.
 

The eyes are nit pickers heaven. So much going on in such a small space. I especially like the area between the eye and the eye brow.

Old, wrinkled faces with expressive eyes!

I love faces with wrinkles, since the more wrinkled a face is, the more it seems to tell a story of a lifetime. The shift of the wrikles (laugh lines at the corner of the eyes, or frown lines at the brow) are all an indication of the individual's persona and the environment they have lived in.

The eyes are the gateway to the person's soul, just giving me another clue about who the individual really is. Each gaze is different and tells volumes.

I don't know what it is. One would say that working on wrinkles can be rather tedious, but time stands still as I develop this love affair with very old strangers. There is this connection, which I just don't get painting any other subject matter.

If you like to know what I mean look at "Old Man" or "The Tibetan Lady" on my site http://members.cox.net/artenzie

My favorites change all the time. Right now it's big bellies. Loving the big pregnant one I am doing. I remember painting a nude in college who was pregnant. She had a tattoo on her hip that had stretched up onto her belly. She was very overweight also. All that flesh was fun to paint. I do enjoy the hair as well. It's the fastest, most immediataly satisfying part for me.

Interesting all.

What about fabrics, accessories, environment? Ingres obviously had a thing for satin.

I love to paint chair cushions. Don't know why. Something about the way they form when someone sits in them, the welting and construction etc. It's a purely arbitrary and personal thrill.

I also had a nice interlude with a string of pearls a few weeks ago.

Go figure.

Tom, I'll be having an interlude with a string of pearls soon. Do you have any tips?

Sure, Michele--

Don't overmodel them. Sometimes they have more luster if you let the brush do the work, and don't overblend. See Sargent. Keep them loose and goosey and you'll have more fun; turn them into an anal rendering exercise and you'll have hand cramps and feel like it's a season in purgatory. Less is more.

You can basically knock in the whole pearl with a medium gray, contour slightly with a reflected light near the bottom that has a cast of the local color they're resting on, and finish with a dab of off white for the highlight. Don't over-contrast values within them. And don't forget some hint of adjacent cast shadow to ground them.

See, I told you it's a Guilty Pleasure.

Thanks, Tom! Sounds like fun -- now I'm looking forward to doing them.

Eyes
 

I love painting the Left eye, (our right) first and working out from there. I love to render the iris just right where the color is brightened opposite the catch light making that arc of color sparkle. Once that is in, my subject comes alive.

Next fav is the outside of the mouth and the lower form of the cheek. Where my subject is not really smiling, but has a lift of a smile about to break, Warmly content.

Start and finish
 

I love to start a painting. All that excitement that this could be great. I love to set down the big shapes and contrasting angles. Then comes the tedium of getting everything correct and exact.

I also love to finish a painting. That is when my love of color takes over and those last few strokes can really make a painting "sing".

This is a great subject. I'm going to pose the guilty pleasures question to my painting group tonight.

Vianna

Today It's the Lips
 

It's still such a struggle, but right now, it would have to be the high light on the lower lip. Yep! It has got to be the lips and the more natural pout the better. Ask me this question a week from now and I'll probably give you a different answer. It seems every painting has something else that amuses or entertains me while I'm pulling it together.

Lynn,

You would have had a field day with our model, Brooke. She has this wonderful natural pout and she wore lip gloss or a very pale shiny lipstick. It was hard to capture that much pout without making her look like she had a swollen lip!

Renee Price :cool:

Pout
 

Hi Renee!

Yeah, Brooke sure looked like she had a challenging mouth. Julia Roberts would probably be another challenge. Chances of Ms.Roberts sitting for me are pretty slim. Will Brooke be in Greensboro next year? ;)