Outdoor lighting

[Ilaria Rosselli Del Turco]

Brian, your portraits all have a very special quality of light, and what a great use of backlighting.
Thank you very much for posting them
Ilaria

[Sharon Knettell]

Brian,

Thank-you for sharing your work with us. The have a lovely quality of light as has been noticed before and beautiful compositions

[Michele Rushworth]

Hi Brian,

Nice to "see you" online. We sat next to each other at the PBA dinner back in February.

You're such a master at outdoor children's portraits. As I think I mentioned to you when we met, you have a painting on your website of a girl at the beach that I thought was the best beach portrait I'd ever seen. I think you topped that with the one you just posted here, though. Wonderful work, and I hope to see more of your posts and input on this forum in the future.

[Garth Herrick]

Brian,

Nice to have you join us! Your signature employment of backlighting is positively brilliant in children's portraiture, in the context of these outdoor settings. The cool toned palette works with these young complexions, and your high-key chroma makes the sensation of sunlit-flooded shade unmistakeable.

Garth

[Tom Edgerton]

Brian--

Great work!

[Linda Brandon]

Hi Brian, welcome to the Forum, and it's so nice to see your work here!

Could we get you to post your palette and any of your working methods you'd like to share?

[Alexandra Tyng]

Brian, I've been admiring these and the thing that stands out for me is how you subtly modeled the children's features with color, within a limited value range. This is so hard to do! I especially like the head and shoulders of the boy.

[Brian Neher]

Hi, Linda. My palette consists of the following colors:
Raw Sienna
Gold Ochre
Cadmium Yellow Pale
Cadmium Yellow
Cadmium Orange
Cadmium Scarlet
Cadmium Red
Cadmium Red Deep
Permanent Alizarin Crimson
Cadmium Green Pale
Permanent Sap Green
Prussian Green
Viridian
Manganese Blue
French Ultramarine
Titanium White

These are all Winsor Newton colors. I occasionally use other colors that aren't normally on my palette, depending on what the painting calls for. These colors consist of Terre Verte, Indian Yellow, and burnt sienna.

As far as working methods go, I will take photos of the subject using both color 35mm film and digital photos. From these photos I then make 8" x 10" enlargements in black and white which I will then use during the painting. I work from black and white prints because I am more interested in the value relationships which are often more difficult to notice in a color photograph. This also allows me to incorporate my own color. I will then work up two preliminary studies to show the client. Once the client chooses which study they like best then I will begin the final painting. I use Claessens #13 single primed linen and start out by blocking in the painting on a white canvas. I prefer not to use a preliminary drawing underneath, but rather start by massing in large areas of the canvas. It is then a process of refining. This involves painting with a brush, palette knife, fingers, and paper towels in order to get the look that I am after. If certain areas of the painting get built up with paint too soon then I scrape the canvas down with a palette knife in order to control the surface of the canvas throughout the painting.

Outdoor lighting tends to be more challenging because the value relationships are very close in an outdoor setting. This means that I am using a limited value scale and am keying my paintings higher in value. By doing this I am raising my darkest value which, in turn, forces me to lower my lightest values. This causes me to work primarily in a middle value range. By limiting the values in a painting you must then use warm and cool color changes in order to achieve the look of volume and form. So instead of using a value change in order to make a form turn, you would use a color change. This play of warm and cool colors throughout the painting is a vital tool in achieving the look of outdoor light. The same principles are used for an indoor portrait, but tend to be more subtle.

[SB Wang]

My friend Brian:
Thank you for sharing these beautiful works!
Your works remind me of Monet's words: "Colour is my day-long obsession, joy and torment".