Saturday 29 October 2011

Little Boy Portrait started ...




About 10" x 8" Coloured pencil on Dark Umber Colourfix sanded paper.  Based on a photo by Rosalind Amorin posted on the Paint My Photo site. 



My thanks to Rosalind for allowing me to experiment with her photo!

This is a rather ambitious interpretation of the photo and I'm not sure it will work ~ well, you have to push the boat out sometimes, even if it sinks!  I want his face to be in the spotlight, as it were, with everything else in the shadows.  Well that's the image I have in my head ... whether I can get that down on paper is quite another thing!  I've simplified the image by leaving out his hand and the chair because they were a bit distracting.  This image of the drawing is pretty accurate but the scan shadow on the left is annoying, can't get rid of it.

So far I've drawn the basic features and blocked in some tonal areas.  I'm using a mixture of pencils, mainly FC Polychromos and Prismacolor.  I've used Artichoke and Bronze (Prismas) along with dark browns for the shadowy bits.  There are also strokes of Pale Vermillion, Cinnamon, Greyed Lavender, Clay Rose in there too along with all the different Peaches.

I'm having trouble with the light areas on his face.  To get his face light enough on this dark paper, I've laid down Light Peaches and Creams with the intention of going in over the top with darker hues.  Trouble is, lighter pencil colours tend to be very waxy, especially the Prismas, and so darker hues do not sit well on top.  I'm getting 'blotchy' patches and it's driving me crazy!  Ah well, I'll keep trying different things on it.  I might crack it ...  then again ... I might give it up as a bad job and start a flower instead!  Hey ho.
    

2 comments:

Pauline said...

I had the same problem with a portrait on Pastelmat and used a little mineral spirit on a cotton bud to blend it, this gave a smooth base colour to rework. It's looking good so worth a try before you abandon it.

Janet Pantry said...

Thanks Pauline, that's a good tip ~ I don't normally use mineral spirit but I might just try that next time for the base. Too late for this one tho I think, I've got lots of colour down now, no going back!

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