Alla Prima

[Holly Snyder]

Hi,

This is an alla prima sketch I did on Friday from an image on my monitor, 16" x 20" on masonite. I'd love comments, although I don't plan on making any changes as this is my first successful alla prima painting and I don't want to ruin the immediacy of it with a second/third/fourth... layer. Sorry about some of the glare on the cheek and neck.

Cheers,

Holly

[Mary Sparrow]

Very nice!!

[Ilaria Rosselli Del Turco]

Holly,I think it is very nice and well constructed, definetely the structure of the drawing underneath is convincing.The brushwork is lively and I think it is a well accomplished alla prima painting.
You also managed to paint the teeth, that I find always very disturbing, so that they 'fit in' very well.
Is this Nicole Kidman? It looks like her.
If I have to find a defect , to me it looks a bit too warm in the lights, and the orange is also enhanced by choosing a green background, maybe you could have greyed down some colours a little.

Many compliments, very painterly...
Ilaria

[Carlos Ygoa]

Holly,

I like the modelling of the head and the fresh feel of the whole painting. I can understand your not wanting to ruin the immediacy of it. One-shot, alla prima work is very hard to get right...looks like you've succeeded here.
If you were to put a gun to my head and say "critique!!" I would say that there is a faint diagonal across her neck from under her chin to where her loose strand of hair ends that kind of forms a triangle that at worst could be kind of distracting. But that's about it.
I've never done work from a monitor... gives me some ideas. I have, however, done sketches from the TV (interviews where they focus on the subject long enough) and have found it to be good exercise.
Once again: congrqatulations!

Carlos

[Marcus Lim]

Originally Posted by Ilaria Rosselli Del Turco

...The brushwork is lively and I think it is a well accomplished alla prima painting.
You also managed to paint the teeth, that I find always very disturbing, so that they 'fit in' very well...
... If I have to find a defect , to me it looks a bit too warm in the lights, and the orange is also enhanced by choosing a green background, maybe you could have greyed down some colours a little...
Ilaria

I second Ilaria's compliment that it's a very lively artwork, which complements the strength of the person's character. It's also icing on the cake with how you managed to get the teeth to fit in nicely. However, my concern is that the brushstrokes may have been too much of a good thing. Correct me if i'm wrong if my guess was that you used a small-sized round brush to work on the fine features, eg. blending the tones on the face?
What i'm trying to say is when it comes to painting heads only, we ought to find the 'magic spot' of that person's features, like the nose probably. Perhaps then the round brushstrokes can be well-used there, while the rest of the face can be appropriately "moved along", i.e. using a bigger dry filbert brush to blend.
I think what i've said might provide some reference points for your future works.

marcus

[Holly Snyder]

Thanks Mary.

Hi Ilaria -

I'll tell my neighbor that she was compared with Nicole Kidman, I'm sure she'd love it. Her mouth stays open naturally, and it looks a little strange when she closes it. I had taken Chris Saper's suggestion that I had read on the forum ages ago, to ask the client/model what they like best and worst about their face. She liked her lips the best.

I do tend to see things a little on the warm side, I'll definitely keep that in mind for new paintings. Thanks.

Carlos,

Thanks. You're certainly right about the triangle, which I didn't notice. I really like working from my LCD monitor, I find the colors to be much truer and lifelike than on a print (plus it's cheaper). Of course you have to work within the confines of your monitor size, unfortunately. Supposedly there's some newer monitors that can be rotated vertically, it would be great if those become the standard and affordable. I really like the lighting in the documentary interviews on some of the shows on the History Channel. Quick sketches would indeed be good practice, particularly if you're watching the show anyway.

Hi Marcus,

I used a small round for parts of the eyes. The rest of the face was mostly #4, #6 and #2 filberts and flats. Are you saying that the facial features are too finely chiseled, that I should try larger brushes? And also what Scott Burdick says here

Try and plan out your brushstrokes like Scrooge himself; the fewer you can do it in, the more powerful your painting will look. If you're confused by this, think of painting a nose. You will want to paint the shadow underneath the nose in a large, simple brushstroke; then use a couple others to paint in the dark of the nostril. If, on the other hand, you paint the smaller shape of the nostril first, you'll have to use lots of little fussy brush strokes to fill in the shadow area around the dark. Once again, always do the larger shape first in as few strokes as possible, then the smaller ones!

I'll work on that, thanks for the reminder!

Cheers all,

Holly

[Linda Brandon]

Like the rest of your work, Holly, this piece has a lot of style, and I like it very much.

Looking at your painting I'm wondering about your ground. Is this Masonite prepared with an acrylic ground? Did you sand it?

I've tried alla prima painting painting on gessoed surfaces before and I find it really frustrating. I can't make the paint flow off my brush the same way that I can on linen; it always takes a couple of coats of paint to get a good surface going, which defeats the one-shot alla prima technique. Any time I go to an open studio setup I try to remember this and bring linen instead of a panel. I'm just wondering if you had a problem with this surface.

By the way if you like gessoed panels you must try one from www.realgesso.com. They will send you free samples to try out the surface, too. I'm painting on one right now and it's perfect for tight detail and multiple paint layers.

[Holly Snyder]

Oh Linda, I can't tell you how frustrating it was! The paint wouldn't come off the brush as smoothly, it would scratch down leaving board showing, and was harder to blend (hence the choppy strokes).

Yes, it was masonite pre-primed ultra-smooth with acrylic gesso. I lightly sanded it to try and give it more tooth, as I remember having some problems with smooth board, but it didn't really work. I wanted to use a board, however, because it is cheaper and takes less space to store than stretched canvas.

I'll check out realgesso. When you say that you bring linen to an open studio setup, do you mean linen on stretchers or glued to a board? If the latter, and you've glued it yourself (rather than from realgesso), what brand/type linen and glue do you use?

Thanks,

Holly

[Linda Brandon]

I cut piece of biggish linen and tape it to heavy cardboard to take to open studio. The benefit of this is that you can decide later how you want to crop this - vertical vs. horizontal - or even move the whole subject to the left or the right. When you're under the pressure of an open studio situation it's really easy to rush the subject placement stage of the painting. If you tape the linen to cardboard and crop later, it gives you more "wiggle room".

Also, if you completely mess things up, you can throw the piece away without having gone to the bother of gluing it to a board. If it turns out to be a masterpiece then it will be on lovely linen, and you can wait until it dries and stretch or glue it. If it turns out to be somewhere in between a masterpiece and a train wreck you can stack it or roll it up and throw it in your closet.

I think there's a lot written on the Forum about gluing linen to boards, try a search. I use Demco glue.

Oh, and not to be a noodge, but I think the ear might be too small on your painting. I just noticed it.

[Holly Snyder]

Thanks a lot for the info! I'm not sure what a noodge is, but please feel free anytime