Underpainting for military portrait commission

Barbara Hudson · 01-02-2003, 11:19 AM

Hello, everybody and may I wish you all a Happy New Year.

I have been busy over the Christmas break with this underpainting.

I am attaching the main reference photograph used for the portrait. However, I have used a combination of about 6 photographs to form the composition that my client wished to have.

I feel quite happy so far, but as it is at the underpainting stage, a lot can go pear-shaped!

How far would you wonderful experts take the detail of the uniform? Please bear in mind that he wants his medals added which are many! I have had it suggested to me that I should be impressionistic with his medals so that they don't 'jump out of the painting' and hence dominate it.

Am I right in thinking that if the medals are to be impressionistic that the uniform should be, too?

Any other suggestions/ideas will be gratefully received.

Thank you for looking.

Barbara.

Barbara Hudson · 01-02-2003, 11:21 AM

This is the main reference photo.

Chris Saper · 01-02-2003, 08:38 PM

Dear Barbara,

Your underpainting actually looks like it is approaching the finish stage, so I am not sure how helpful it would be for me to make suggestions, but perhaps they will be useful in future portraits. Although your question is specific to the medals, I would address a few preliminary elements first, which include composition and drawing.

Just thinking out loud on the compositional aspects of your painting, I think you have a very lovely, well-done resource photo; I like the position of the hand in the photo. By moving it to rest on the chair, you've created not only a little eye-trap with the back of the chair, but have a light value against a strong dark triangle that moves the eye out of the picture at the bottom. The globe's position, combined with its value and strong color saturation, competes very strongly, and threatens to overpower the man's head. By perhaps choosing instead to position the globe behind the figure on a table of some sort, your shapes would be connected, and the forms overlap, so that the globe could more readily become subordinate to the figure. (This is the reason I always try to work out compositional issues before I make other decisions - including dimensions of the canvas - before I start. I thinkit's really important to work out the negative spaces before beginning. There's quite a bit on the Forum with regard to massing values in a three-value study.)

I think you should also check your drawing, as the man's head is too small for the body that you have painted. His stance in the photo is both commanding and inviting, which is not only unusal but very attractive, and conveys, at least to me, a strong feeling about the persona. You will also want to check the proportions of the head. Even though the photo's viewpoint is a tiny bit below eye level, it's not enough so to shorten the forehead to the extent you have. I usually find the placement of the ears to be a quick giveaway to the attitude of the head; in the photo, your subject's lower ear lobe sits just about horizontally with the line where upper and lower lips meet.

Looking at your photo, I think it is wonderful how the light shoulder actually does fall against the darker ground, and the reverse happens with the shoulder in shadow. I think this is so often an invented convention for painters, that when it really occurs, it lends a very strong sense ot the quality of the light on the form.

As to the medals, I would probably just ask him; he may feel they are very important to the portrait. You can paint them accurately, yet without the level of detail or contrast that will cause them to be eye-poppers.

Good luck!

Barbara Hudson · 01-03-2003, 02:00 AM

Hello, Chris,

Thank you for your advice and valued comments.

After more careful study, and performing the transparency overlaying in Photoshop, I have to agree that the head is too small in relation to the rest of him. I don't think that I want to reduce the size of his body and anyway, this will make him appear too tall, so I will enlarge his head to the correct size.

I also agree that the stance in the photograph with the way he holds his hand is appealing. I immediately liked this one and put this photograph forward to him as my first choice. Hhowever, he didn't like the way he held his hand and the hand resting on the chair was his choice.

He also wanted the globe included in the composition and I had to borrow a globe to copy.

I will try to tone down the colours in the globe so that it is not in competition with his head as you suggested.

I have spoken to him about his medals and, as there are so many I suggested to him that we tone them down, as if I didn't, they would be likely to dominate the painting and he did agree to this.

I will lighten the colour of the back of the chair to hopefully reduce the 'eye trap' phenomena.

Thank you again, Chris,

Barbara

Christina Common · 01-03-2003, 01:47 PM

Hi, Barbara.

You are tackling the same issues I am! I'm currently working on a General's portrait with several issues -- flag, medals, and background.

I don't feel I'm qualified to give very much advice on oil painting, but I do feel I can add input about the medals. I'm also active duty in the military and if there is one thing that describes who you are in your military uniform, it's the medals! If you look at military portraits painted by some of my favorite artists -- Tom Edgerton, Simmie Knox, and Dean Paules -- you will see all their medals included, but toned down so the bright colors don

Barbara Hudson · 01-07-2003, 10:03 AM

Thank you, Christina, for your advice on military style portraiture.

I have sat with my client and showed him a large selection of military portraits and my advice was to to have no props whatsoever and to use the attached reference photograph for his stance. I did a quick watercolour for him to give him more ideas also.

He came up with the idea for the props and what he wanted himself and I do not yet feel qualifed to cajole my client into something that he doesn't want. I suggested just having a flag in the background as you are doing in your military portrait but he pooh-poohed that idea.

I am continuing with the composition as it is because he has OK'd it and I have already done a lot of work on it.

However, I have added his hat to the desk to take away the empty space on the desk. I don't know whether this improves it or not and would like some opinions on this, please.

Also, I have added his medals in an impressionistic way, toning them down quite a lot (they are very colourful medals) in the hope that they do not overpower the face of the subject. Have I succeeded? Or should I tone them down even more?

I have corrected a few drawing errors on his face that Chris pointed out to me. Yes, Chris, you were right. All I did to correct this was to widen his face and ears and adjust his forehead and hairline. This seemed to do the trick for me. However, you may see something else.

Good luck with your military portrait, Christina.

Thank you for looking.

Barbara

Christina Common · 01-07-2003, 07:10 PM

Hi Barbara

Barbara Hudson · 01-15-2003, 07:15 AM

Hello Christina!

Thank you for your very valuable advice and I apologise for not getting back to you sooner. I have been away in the UK.

As you will see by the latest version, I have taken heed of what you have said and changed a few things i.e. arm angle and thumb. I can't do anything about the medals until I have spoken to him, he is away at the moment.

The most obvious change that I have made is the background. I just couldn't live with the other one! I hope that you approve of the changes so far.

Thank you again,
Barbara

Karin Wells · 01-15-2003, 11:06 AM

Chris Saper gave you some excellent advice and I would like to think that you will reconsider some if not all of it. It isn't often that someone of her stature gives such an insightful critique in order to help another artist. And I think that some of her right-on-target points deserve to be repeated:

Quote:

...I think you have a very lovely, well-done resource photo; I like the position of the hand in the photo. By moving it to rest on the chair, you've created not only a little eye-trap with the back of the chair, but have a light value against a strong dark triangle that moves the eye out of the picture at the bottom. The globe's position, combined with its value and strong color saturation, competes very strongly, and threatens to overpower the man's head. By perhaps choosing instead to position the globe behind the figure on a table of some sort, your shapes would be connected, and the forms overlap, so that the globe could more readily become subordinate to the figure.

Looking at your photo, I think it is wonderful how the light shoulder actually does fall against the darker ground, and the reverse happens with the shoulder in shadow. I think this is so often an invented convention for painters, that when it really occurs, it lends a very strong sense ot the quality of the light on the form.