Close-up

[John Reidy]

Very nice, Clive,

As noted in another excellent portrait posted recently it is difficult turning the form with color only.

I like the quiet essence of the overall portrait, the style and concept denote a clear and straight-forward personality.

[Ilaria Rosselli Del Turco]

Clive, I was recently, while painting, chatting to one of my tutors about colour temperature: I was saying that, since shadows are very often warm, then I would try and introduce some cool colours in the lights to define the form better.
What he said ( I felt all my art book knowledge crumbling ) was that this does not always work, and that to have cools in a face might give it an ill look, and that sometimes warm and warmer is enough.
I think this is a very good example of such a choice of colours, and it depicts coherently a certain light situation.

Very interesting work
Ilaria

[Clive Fullagar]

Llaria,

Yes I have a tendency to use warm colors, as Alex Tyng pointed out in another of my posts. In this particular portrait I tended to use magenta and sap green. I love using the latter, it is such a wonderful chameleon color that really takes on the light of the surrounding colors. It is also very translucent so that it never dominates, just produces an unpretentious shadow.

[Ilaria Rosselli Del Turco]

Clive, I don't have sap green, if I need a green in skin tones I would normally mix it from viridian or blue. I'll buy a tube of sap and give it a try, I am experimenting with different colours
Ilaria

[Alexandra Tyng]

How interesting about sap green. Although it is a staple in my palette, I almost always use it in landscapes, not portraits.