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.