{"id":18576,"date":"2020-02-28T13:16:38","date_gmt":"2020-02-28T21:16:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/winifredsgallery.com\/?p=18576"},"modified":"2021-04-18T16:10:39","modified_gmt":"2021-04-18T23:10:39","slug":"beads-in-her-hair","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/winifredsgallery.com\/?p=18576","title":{"rendered":"Beads in Her Hair"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Beads in Her Hair – 12×16 oil on linen panel – by Winifred <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It’s been a year and a half since I painted a portrait. I decided I needed to paint portraits again before I forgot how – though I’m not sure if there is such a thing. I actually think any kind of painting leads to the same place – a more practiced and competent painter – but just in case I decided it was time. I opened my “to paint folder” to make a photo selection. I encountered this little girl a couple years prior, sitting inside a large shopping cart as her mom pushed her about while grocery shopping. She was wearing a pink dress with sparkling white beads in her hair. I ask her mom if I could photograph her. I promised her mom I would send her a digital file of the photo I took and I did. I then put the file away, not sure I would ever paint it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I began the painting, I envisioned a simple head and shoulders portrait with a plain background. I knew the beads in her hair would give the painting a certain pop! Below is an earlier unfinished stage of the painting and it was the stopping place for day one. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Early unfinished phase 1 of the painting without even simple background complete.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The following day, I painted a simple golden toned background with a bit of color variation and a bit of texture – different from what you see above. I also formed her arms more correctly and changed from the stark white beads – a judgement call – to more painterly beads. I placed the completed phase 1 painting where I could look at it for a while and thought – I DON”T THINK SO! The slouch was awkward against the plain background and bothered me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I decided to give her a red chair because people often slouch in a chair – this helped. At the end of that painting day, however, I still wasn’t satisfied. I decided the background had to change to something more colorful and interesting. I went through my files, found a simple floral pattern, and used it, generally, as a background reference. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Adding this color, tones and shapes gave me what I wanted. These changes occurred over several days as my vision of the portrait evolved. It’s so much easier and faster to complete a painting if I have all the information and elements in the reference photo from the beginning – but in this case it was a “shopping cart”. It’s a good exercise to work this way, however, as it is an exercise in expanding ones creativity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Portraits are complex and can be very tedious. This portrait was complex but was actually enjoyable and I will be creating them more often.<\/p>\n

Related Images:<\/h3>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s been a year and a half since I painted a portrait. I decided I needed to paint portraits again before I forgot how – though I’m not sure if there is such a thing. I actually think any kind … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18662,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[307],"tags":[317,373],"class_list":["post-18576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-traditional-oil-painting","tag-winifred-whitfield-oil-paintings","tag-winifred-whitfield-portrait-oil-painting"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/winifredsgallery.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/girl-beads3.jpg","uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/winifredsgallery.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/girl-beads3.jpg",500,667,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/winifredsgallery.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/girl-beads3-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/winifredsgallery.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/girl-beads3-225x300.jpg",225,300,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/winifredsgallery.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/girl-beads3.jpg",500,667,false],"large":["https:\/\/winifredsgallery.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/girl-beads3.jpg",500,667,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/winifredsgallery.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/girl-beads3.jpg",500,667,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/winifredsgallery.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/girl-beads3.jpg",500,667,false],"post-thumbnail":["https:\/\/winifredsgallery.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/girl-beads3-500x288.jpg",500,288,true],"large-feature":["https:\/\/winifredsgallery.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/girl-beads3-500x288.jpg",500,288,true],"small-feature":["https:\/\/winifredsgallery.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/girl-beads3-225x300.jpg",225,300,true]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"Winifred Whitfield","author_link":"https:\/\/winifredsgallery.com\/?author=2"},"uagb_comment_info":4,"uagb_excerpt":"It’s been a year and a half since I painted a portrait. I decided I needed to paint portraits again before I forgot how – though I’m not sure if there is such a thing. I actually think any kind … Continue reading →","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p56JFk-4PC","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/winifredsgallery.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/winifredsgallery.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/winifredsgallery.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/winifredsgallery.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/winifredsgallery.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18576"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/winifredsgallery.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18576\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18677,"href":"https:\/\/winifredsgallery.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18576\/revisions\/18677"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/winifredsgallery.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/18662"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/winifredsgallery.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/winifredsgallery.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/winifredsgallery.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}