Hello all,
This painting of Kim is my first serious effort at portrait painting. I'd painted "portraits" before as exercises, but not with the amount of planning and effort that went into this one. It is 13" x 10", oil on maple panel. I spent two months doing very quick sketches from life, a dozen or so memory drawings, two watercolors, and some photo studies before I started the actual oil painting. In the actual painting phase I had discovered Jonathan Janson's "How to paint your own Vermeer" website and followed his technique.
http://howtopaintavermeer.fws1.com/
He was very helpful to me with advice and encouragement and critical comments when the raw umber underpainting was done. Of course the only thing Vermeerish about it is the directional light and the interior setting. The colors in the jpeg are not too bad, except that her skin tone here is discernably more reddish than the actual painting, at least before posting. I've got a later painting of Kim that I'll post for critique eventually.
Since I'm so new at this I'd like to post my entire "portfolio" in chronological order to get some sense of whether I might be drifting off in a bad direction. Well, I've already gotten out of order with the self-portrait that was my first post, but the fourth portrait that I've done (of five total since January). I'll try to do this at appropriate intervals. If it gets to be too much someone say something and I'll back off. I'm fairly thick-skinned, so don't be afraid to let me have it.
Threaded Mode
