Transcription
Hello and welcome to this new video. This is the first part of the portrait I've done recently, and I will use this opportunity to talk about my process and about things I do sometimes in my studio, uh, when the sketch can be developed beyond just, uh, a portrait study towards some narrative, uh, piece.
Here, as you can see, I have the reference. Uh, we, we have, we have the set of references in our Patreon, so you're very welcome to work with this, with this set. She's a fantastic model, and when I was doing the photoshoot, I was somehow mesmerized by the accessories she had, all these gold things, very shiny, very beautiful. So I've decided to make a sketch first. I've started with very simple blocking, and as you can see, there is no drawing, there is nothing like, no blocking, no construction with pencils or with charcoal. So everything is just straight ahead work with the brush. Uh, the mixture which I use here is Umber mixed with Transparent Red Oxide and diluted it with mineral spirits with the Gamsol.
So the process here is, it, I, I wouldn't say it is very accurate drawing, especially in the beginning. So for me, it was mostly like meditation on the shapes and on the plane of the head. So I'm just quickly blocking everything I see, trying to, to build up the likeness and general appearance, general design of everything. I'm using just one round brush. It is a Rosemary brush from the series called Shiras, number five. And now, as you can see, I'm smudging things with a Comber brush, Eclipse Series.
So the point of, of this practice, the point of things I'm doing now is just to have fun. Uh, I'm trying to, I'm trying to find some connections between the eye socket, the forehead, very, very simple spatial relationships, but I'm not trying to be extremely perfect here. What, what I do is just, it is some sort of observation, but with a brush in the head. And this is exactly what I was going to talk about at this stage, because you will see that there will be a lot of back and forth. I will erase things, I will adjust, and I will not be satisfied until a certain point. But keep in mind that all the process of initial blocking took maybe 30 minutes, 40 minutes or something. So this first session, I think it is about 3 hours total, and for me, it is a very normal routine time slot for such practice. So I, I prefer, especially when there is no defined structure or unless I have to do just an elaborated rendering, I prefer to keep my time limited to 3 hours because after 3 hours of deliberate practice, after 3 hours of intensive decision making, things are going to be slightly more difficult. So I, I prefer to stop at around 3 hours mark to continue next day, for example.
So when I, when I do such, such things, when I observe with the brush, the point is to, to try to build resemblance through the masses. And I'm just using the brush, this general, generic, let's say, Umber mixture, and I'm using different tools to erase or to smudge my marks and also to move the paint a little bit. So I'm using the paper towels folded multiple times. So I'm using Q-tips for more precision eraser. So let's say, just, yeah, to, to erase in a more precise way. And I'm just continuing building things up on top of the initial shadow.
Working this way helps me a lot, just to have fun. You see, like, like right now, I was not happy, so I just erased everything. I want to find the mouth again because the mouth is most important and it is most difficult. I was just not satisfied with the spatial relationships there, and I, and I've noticed that the distance between the nose, the bottom of the nose, and the philtrum of the lip was not correct. It was too long. So it's why I erased things. And now I'm, I'm just working out the centerline, trying just to find the general representation. Now it looks like the upper lip is too big, but I'm just compressing everything into this dark shape, the upper lip, and open the mouth. And now with a darker accent inside of the corner of the mouth, I can see the separation between the lip and the teeth. And again, not happy. Need to, need to fix everything.
Since my two attempts, previous attempts of painting the mouth were a, there were failures, I've decided to slow down. Although you cannot see how slow I am because it is just time lapse, like five times faster than it was. But now I am just doing it again, smudging, erasing, and painting over until I can find a really nice looking representation of this face. I've decided to show this part of the process, uh, for, for you to see that it is not about being perfect everywhere and every time, but it is all about to make decisions and to be able to erase things if you are not satisfied. You see, it is, it is getting even worse now, but the point is that sometimes you just cannot notice it because you are looking to just one particular part into, into the small local area, in this case, in the mouth. And it also leads us to understanding why oil grounds are so important for such paint application because you can just move things around endlessly. The, the luxury we cannot afford if we are working on acrylic grounds because the acrylic ground will stain very fast and we will have to, yeah, it will be just difficult to erase.
So just for information, what I do here, here is, there was no intention of even finishing this sketch. I was just playing around. It was my warm-up practice somehow. So here, what I'm doing, it's just, I'm just playing around. And the, it is very important in my opinion to be able just to paint without, without thinking, thinking a lot. Because if, if I was going to do something really elaborate, something premeditated, I will have to spend a lot of time in preparation and setting up the composition and preliminary drawings and other things. But here, it's just, it's just playful alla prima. And in the next session, you will see how I make decisions about making this painting a gallery piece and how I just bring everything together, likeness, composition, and other elements. But the looseness and playful mood of the initial sketch will be will determine the outcome eventually. So everything about this painting will be just playful and funny somehow. And you can see I'm still working around this area. I'm not giving up. The, the point is just to find as good representation as possible, as good foundation for the, for subsequent rendering as possible.
And when I do this blocking, when I solve the drawing problems, I am also thinking about the next layers. I'm thinking about the mixtures and layerings and thickness, approach my strategy for edges, for everything. So I think it is, it is quite crucial to learn how to be, how to judge your drawing and how to take, just to take as, as much time as you need to build up a good foundation. I would rather spend two hours on blocking instead of 20 minutes, but if I have a really good foundation, if I had a really good base, it is going to be really easy later when I just add more and more colors and textures and everything on top.
So now that the fun begins, the colors, the generic skin tone mixtures. And you see, I am premixing because I just needed some time to switch from drawing, from blocking mode into color and volume mode. So it is, it is very normal when I, when I need some time off the canvas. I'm not just walking or sitting around. I premix, premix, uh, my skin tones or do something else or clean my brushes or palette. So I use, I use this time off the canvas to, to do something useful, but at the same time to just, just to refresh my, my perception. Very quickly, very broadly, without thinking much. Local colors, greenish half-tone transitions, because I clearly see them in her skin. Reds in the cheekbones, slightly more yellow and paler, uh, skin tones in the forehead. So everything is very direct, everything is very straightforward here. I just want the paint to be there as soon as I can.
And, and it's all. I think it is worth mentioning that, uh, in this sketch, I am using Alizarin Titanium White. Fast drying Titanium. I think it is Winsor & Newton. Oh, yeah, it is called Griffin, as far as I remember. And it was one of my first experiments with this. I've learned that if you use it just as it is from the tube, it, it will dry too fast. So I, I was mixing it, maybe two parts, I'll get one part Titanium, or sometimes just half half to have, to have the white which will have almost the same drying time as, uh, lead white. So, so in case if you want to paint faster with using Titanium, I highly recommend to use this Alizarin. It's, I think it's the only way to have your white dry faster than normal Titanium.
This initial application of colors is very basic. The most important part is just to, to incorporate chromatic local colors into the skin. And you see, in the beginning, everything was very patchy and brush strokes were visible, but with a Comber soft brush, I was able just to, to smudge it and to blend it, using, using the like sculpting the form, like as you can see it now. I apply something and with, with a blending brush, I'm just, uh, adjusting, adjusting the appearance of it, sculpting the surface. It's about halfway of the session, so 1 hour and a half. And at this stage, at this moment, I already know will I continue working on this portrait or not. If not, if it is a failure or I just started to hate it or whatever, it's a perfect time just to, to take paper towel, soak it in mineral spirits for a moment, and just wipe everything off. And I will have an absolutely immaculate clean canvas for tomorrow's effort. Or, as in this case, I just like it. I see that everything is developing nicely, so I know that I'm going to continue working on this painting more.
I hope you noticed this little bluish mixtures I've incorporated around her eye because I knew that somehow, we, we know that the highlights are going to be cool in, in such areas, but we don't see it directly. So we just, I just wanted to, to incorporate certain variety in the skin tones. So first, I applied the blues, and and immediately after that, I just covered the blues with a more neutral, more generic skin tone there. And I was using almost the same blue as a, as color key for her coat, for the costume, not the final color, of course, not nothing, nothing really final here, just, just to separate monotonous brown orange I was using for blocking from, uh, to, to separate the costume from, from, from the general shadow, from these generic shadows I was using for the blocking. So at this point, I'm already, I'm already trying to create pictorial design, thinking about different temperatures and complementary colors which will add variety and dynamic qualities to this painting.
Mixing some pinks for the lips, and at the same time, refinement. I continue to refine the drawing of the lips and the muzzle of the mouth in general. Last few, maybe couple of years, I started to use more round brushes than before. I think I think it's more than 50% of my brush tasks are are made done with with the round brushes now. So I will consider, I would say some sort of evolution of my, uh, painting practice, using pointy, more precise brushes. And as you can see now, I'm using the side of the round brush for smudging, blending, or just for broad brush strokes. And switching to smaller round brushes, I can just seamlessly focus on the smaller parts again, on the muzzle of the mouth, on the lips, just subtle refinements, bit more color, slightly more accurate drawing of the lips. And again, smudging, softening, thinking about how this layer will dry.
If we talk about skin tones here, you, you will notice that I'm not using a lot of different colors or different mixtures. I've created some, some basic premixes first, and I'm just, uh, using them to separate different value groups, not just by values, but also by changing of temperature or, or the color. So the main thing here is to avoid monotonous representation of the skin, monotonous colors in the skin. There is all, there are always ways to harmonize everything. There are always ways to make skin look more pale or less pale, or more harmonious, or let's say, less chromatic. But if we have subtle variety in the beginning, it helps a lot to create believable looking skin tones with some room for artistic representation and visual poetry. And this painting is going to be all about such poetry.
I'm adding more whites now into the skin because I, I feel that it is settling fast. So I'm pretty much pleased with this Alizarin white, and it is why I'm adding more and more of light into the mixture because I know that it will definitely dry next day or maybe day after, and I will be able to continue working on it regardless of the thickness of this initial layer. Getting slightly closer with the in the in that area again, in the area of my main interest. And notice that the eyes, I, I haven't even touched the eyes with a, with a paint, with, with the half tones. The eyes are still very empty. It's just initial drawing with a blocking mixture. And it makes a lot of sense because the eye sockets, and this is very important, the eye sockets, they don't move. They, the eye sockets, they are very rigid. So if we find proper design, proper relationships, and proper perspective of the eye sockets, and how eye sockets are related to the nose, for example, we can spend more time or put all our effort in the most moving part of the face, which is the lower part of the face, because there are so many muscles, there are so many mimics and motion in the mouth that it requires our utmost attention and effort. So I recommend to, to find the placement and construction of the solid bone structure first, and use it as your reference for the centerline and for the, for the rest of spatial relationships, especially when it comes to the most moving and most delicate area of, of the head, which is the mouth.
So now blending and, and just softening everything as usual. I don't want to leave any sharp edges to dry. I mentioned it many times that first or second, first layers, I prefer to leave them to dry with softer edges. So in, in this case, I will be able to control the edges better and easily, uh, later. So for me, the, the sharpest edges, sometimes they just, I just apply them in the very end of the rendering process. So now it is mostly wrapping up this session, just with a, with a subtle refinements. And at this stage, I'm also thinking about composition because I wanted the, the head to be slightly off-center. I wanted the, the head to be situated in a less formal, uh, composition. So I didn't, I didn't want it to be just, just another portrait. I wanted, I wanted to create a bit unbalanced, a bit dynamic composition using the placement of the head and the shoulders in this piece. So she is shifted to the right of the canvas from the center. And you can see just very random brush strokes on the left, for me, just to some sort of the placeholders, some marks for myself that I will need the shapes, something on the left to, to on, on the left side of the canvas to balance the whole thing together, to, to just to bring everything together.
In this case, from pictorial point of view, sometimes I know what is going to happen next, sometimes I don't. And some of my paintings, they just, they just come out naturally. I'm just developing the ideas, I'm playing with, with the different elements, or I'm just trying to develop the painting as I go. But sometimes, uh, it's good to have a really clean and defined understanding, vision of what you're going to accomplish on the canvas. So the main outcome of this session for me is, I kind of like how she looks now, the smile, the mouth, everything is very promising. The colors are simple, but at the same time bright and vivid, and there is already a sense of luminosity in her skin tones. From compositional point of view, there are many things to decide and to, to do, but in general, yeah, generally I'm pretty much satisfied with this stage.
So my advice or my recommendation, try to find some time in, in your studio practice. Try to find the moment just for when you paint for the sake of painting. Choose the model or reference, or just use the mirror and paint your self-portrait, just for the sake of the process. Focus on building up the likeness, building up the, the drawing, the structure, right away without drawing, without things. Try to sculpt with a brush. Try to see with a brush in your hand. And it is somehow very important skill, very important mindset when we analyze everything with a brush in our hand, not just by looking. But observation, of course, is very important, but by observing and painting at the same time. So we start to create a stronger connection between observation and paint application. So I try to reduce the delay between the thought and stroke. I hope it was helpful, and I'm looking forward to share the next stage with you. See you soon.