Pin Up Girl 12×12 Oil Painting by Winifred Whitfield
Known for their “pouty” red lips, big curls, wind blown up swept skirts, and long legs – I thought I’d give suchpainting a try – at least partially. Some years ago, I taught an entire online digital painting course focused on the great painters of pin up. I have many photo references taken more than 10 years ago while attending a photography competition in Nevada. A bunch of us hired a couple models and went into the desert to do a photo shoot. This is the first oil painting I’ve created from one of those references. I find all portrait paintings challenging, however, In this case, I was even challenged by the blouse! I completely repainted her blouse 6 times – not just changing it a little each time, but totally. I altered the style of brush strokes, style of texture,the shape of the blouse, the color – everything. Ultimately, the simpler I made it the better. Hope you enjoy my pin up. There is someone out there who very much reminds me of a pin up girl. The red dress you were wearing would have been perfect.
Cutie Pie 12×12 Oil Painting by Winifred Whitfield
I’m finding that when I allow young children to pose themselves, they often do a remarkable job. I love his adorable pose. There aren’t words to instruct him to do this. The fact is, I was shooting a wedding 18 years ago, when I saw him. I ask him if I could photographed him. I saved this image in a special folder for that long – the folder is titled “portraits to be painted”.
Famous and brilliant artist Richard Schmidt said that one should always place a spot of red somewhere in a painting. That’s why, I added the little red label looking thing on his sleeve. I didn’t want to make it too red but the color spot does make a difference. Most of the time – I forget. Hope you enjoy. Have a wonderful weekend. Winifred
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Gentle Breeze in Sunlight – 11×14 Oil Painting by Winifred
Yes, again, this painting was created without an initial sketch. I may want to rethink that. In painting a portrait, one of the most important things is to get proportions correct and to get features in the right place and accurate. That’s not easy. Take a look below and how this painting began. Nothing is quite in the right place in my first paint layer. The eyes have not been painted at all.
Building form and features, making corrections with paint layers.
The good news is that the hair and background I liked from the very start. I didn’t know this would be my final background but I desired no change to it. It only required some vision of the colors I wanted as an under painting, painted primarily to cover the white of the canvas. I used quick loose brush marks and it was done. Then I tried for a general shape of the face and some quick brush marks in the general shape of her hair and mostly I never touched the hair again. Can you imagine, taking a brush and going “swish, swish, swish and something is finished. These are the kind of energetic brushstrokes I love. Such loose energetic strokes are lost if I were to keep redoing and tweaking them. They’d go flat and stale. That part of the first paint layer was easy. I ended my first night. I’m always excited for the next paint session when I awake the next day, because I know exactly what I have to do – even though I know suffering will now commence.
Typically, I create four or 5 paint layers to complete a portrait. Many times, it’s even more. Portraits are hard to paint. I’ve ask myself why I love painting portraits since they require such lengthy and complex processes and can be quite tedious. It is all very complicated but I am obsessed! I decided that what keeps me going is that in the end, there is this beautiful portrait which was born out of chaos and I feel proud of this. Often the next day, after I thought my portrait was finished, I return it to the easel and work on it for another 10 hours or for several days to come. As time passes and with fresh vision, there is a process of seeing it anew, wanting to make yet another change – until finally you don’t make more changes and then it is finished. Actually, and unfortunately, that’s what happens most of the time. It’s that way for most painters, so I’m in good company.
For a couple years, Ive watched a YouTube series called “Portrait Artist of the Year”. It has been filmed in several European English speaking countries. It starts with 8 portrait artist and is whittled down to the winner -the “Portrait Artist of the Year” receives a $10.000.00 commission to paint some actor, musician or other artistically famous person. The artist competing include both professional artist and non-professional artist. During this competition, the artist has to create their paintings in 4 hours. Of course, everyone is freaked out, but everyone has the same disadvantage. Importantly to me, they all say the same thing. They say they can typically cover the canvas with paint in one day or several hours, but to actually COMPLETE a painting to their satisfaction, usually tales 3 weeks to several months. So you see, that’s really how it is. I was happy to hear this. The long period needed to complete the portrait is because of the need to “refresh” your eyes, and often your artistic vision – it’s a process that can not occur working continuously, its a process which requires time and space.
So many words today. Hope I haven’t bored you. I’m trying to cover my disappointment and sadness. Yet another mass shooting and women’s rights have been pushed back by 50 years. What’s happening in this country is horrifying. Right to Life and AR 15’s standing hand in hand – what a joke! And don’t get me started on Trump! Have a good weekend.
Man in Darkness 9×12 Oil Painting by Winifred Whitfield
When painting a portrait, I have always used one of several methods to help ensure I create a likeness when working from a reference image. There is the process of using a grid, where one places lines on the reference image and lines on the painting support and then transfers image information from the reference image to the canvas to be painted. One can use tracing paper to transfer lines and shapes onto their painting surface. One can project the image onto the painting surface and then sketch the image projected. None of these methods are fool proof because once one starts applying paint on the surface, it is so easy to obscure the lines and shapes you have sketched, but one can generally approximate their intent approximation is generally not good enough and one often struggles to get portrait features correct. Ultimately, I found these methods to be obstacles to creativity because of the tediousness of relying on those lines.
Over the last couple weeks, I’ve completely abandoned the use of these aids and I am very proud of that. Finally, I am completely confident that I can pick up my brush, start to paint and achieve the level of detail and expressiveness I want with out aids. It’s very liberating. I no longer attempt any kind if outline sketch. I begin with a large brush making loose strokes on a medium toned painted surface. I begin with a solid shape of the head and hair and work backwards adding and subtracting brushstrokes to obtain the details of the portrait. I can be as loose in this process as I choose. The featured image in this blog was created this way along with the second image in the last blog. There is no part of the process which constrains my mind or hand – suggesting that I “color within the lines”. It’s quite liberating.
When painting digitally and painting from imagination , I often did this kind of freehand painting so I knew I had some facility in this regard, but my confidence was not as great when it came to oil painting – and creating an actual portrait likeness. I’ve demonstrated to myself my capacity to creates portraits this way and it’s actually more enjoyable.
Have a fun and safe holiday. Feel free to contact me at [email protected]
lowers in Her Hair 12×16 Oil Painting by Winifred Whitfield
It’s been really difficult for me to create post during the past few weeks in the midst of ongoing mass murders – so I didn’t. I had to just stop posting for a while. I painted because that’s soothing but creating post/adjusting images to look like the paintings is a different matter. I enjoyed creating the two versions of this painting. I love the color and elegance of the painting above. I enjoy the texture and energy of the painting below. The fact is I enjoy both very much. This lady is the mom of the little blonde curly head girl with the teddy bear I’ve painted recently a few times prior.
Black Woman Long Braids Textured Surface. Oil Painting – by Winifred Whitfield
I am compelled to say, I am a gun owner but I think we need to ban AR 15’s and similar assault, mass murder, weapons of war – temporarily or otherwise. No one has been able to identify any other purpose for them other than for mass murder.
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