Self Portrait in Oil...the process...and the comparison

 In the studio with all my references...the acrylic me is on the bottom left, and the photo references are above...

This was a toughy for me!  Number one, I'd rather paint just about anything but ME...It forces one to really look hard...plus I have a hard time getting a likeness...I think subconsciously I eliminate those flaws that are ME...BUT, I told my students that I would walk them through the process I used to get to a completed portrait.  I decided to use the reference I used when I painted the acrylic version of ME the day I painted with the most wonderful portrait artist Carol Nelson (among many other painterly talents!).  I also want to show my students the difference in the end results when working with acrylic vs. oil for portraits.  SO...I decided to post the process and end result that I came up with...I realize things I COULD do to tweak this...but quite frankly I was sick of looking at me! HA...Here goes...

 Tinted the background with the reference drawing underneath.  I used pink as I was going for complete fauve...and there was a lot of pink in my acrylic version...

Beginning by adding line to areas I wanted to make sure were defined clearly...SPOOKY stage!!

Beginning to block in color and shadow...I thought about the purple shadow areas...looking like bruises...but I powered through KNOWING I didn't want a dull shadow...

Moving on to detail in some areas...playing with background color to make sure I was going to like it with the hair...getting those eyes and lips as close as I could...

Nearly there...I decided my lips were too red...could have left it like this...but played just a tiny bit more...and ended up with the finished version...

For better or worse this is what I ended up with...It is very hard to find that finished feeling when I do a self portrait...Having just painted all my flaws, and probably leaving out some very important descriptive details I decided to call this one a day...The reference and the acrylic version is below.

Reference...the one before I added the darks and lights...

Acrylic me...

WHEW...glad that is over...I almost posted this in my last post...but then Carol came up with a gorgeous me...and I just couldn't put the two together...As I've said I'm NO PORTRAIT PAINTER...but I won't let that get me down...I'm gonna master this eventually!!  The most important part...IT WAS A LEARNING EXPERIENCE!!

Now, on to another fun thing...We have our first entry to the painting challenge for this month...This entry is from Sherry Massey...You all know her as Autumn Leaves...Great job on the giraffe miss Autumn Leaves!!

Sherry Massey

Sherry's name will go into the drawing along with any other followers that submit an entry to me at my e-mail...art4life44@hotmail.com. 

Lesson #1 learned and now on to more...

Fauvist self portrait attempt #1...

As promised I am showing you the end result of experiment number 1 of my journey into the fauvist self portrait world! My day with Carol was awesome! I learned so much just in those few hours we spent together; me watching and practicing and listening as intently as I could to her suggestions. I found that working a portrait with the typical acrylics is HARD. As Carol talked about they often come out looking more like a paint by number as it is very difficult to get them to blend as quickly as you would like. Yep...that is exactly what I discovered. But, I wanted to try and see...this will help me as I explore other ways to approach portraits.

This whole thing started as I have a problem with portraits. I FREEZE when trying to figure out how to paint skin tones. This was a New Year's resolution I made to myself that I would work on this whether I become a great portrait painter or not! HA. I felt working in the fauvist style (pronounced fovist...long o...I looked it up and you were right Carol!) would be a good way to accomplish my work on fear of skin tones. I discovered that I am most definitely NOT afraid of color as you can see here! HA...HOWEVER...I should perhaps tone down some of it...and I am now on a journey to see what medium I want to work future portrait attempts with.

At first I thought I would get my oils out and go with them...then, after an exhaustive search I couldn't find them, so I decided to experiment with the open acrylics and the retarders for acrylics first to see if they might have a solution for my problem of blending. The investment is much less, and I am familiar with acrylics. It has been YEARS since I worked exclusively in oils. IF I find they aren't condusive to what I am trying to do I will, without fear, return to oils for these types of paintings.

SO, even though I am in no way a Carol Nelson, I did have fun, and I wanted you to see the end result of my day with Carol and my fauvist self portrait #1. and by the way Carol...I am going to play around with the ideas we talked about for my trees...thanks for the collaboration my friend!!