Portrait Painting Basics: Portrait Sketching in Oils

1. Portrait Sketch Intro: Hey, everyone. So this class is gonna be all about doing a portrait sketch in oils and by sketch. I mean, this is a painting that essentially is going to be done in a single sitting, spread out over maybe as little as two hours as maybe as long as four hours. I would say on DSO I'm going to go over quite a few things in getting started. We'll start off by kind of talking a little bit about color mixing in using a limited palate, but will also discuss doing things in monochrome as well. And I'd like to keep the palate fairly simple overall. Just that way, there's not a whole lot of things that you need material wise for the class on. Then we'll move on to some exercises. I'll show you a monochrome exercise that you can try if you feel a little bit uncomfortable painting with color from the start. And this might be a great option for people that are just kind of getting introduced to oils, and I'll show you a basic simple color exercise that you can attempt as well, so that if you're just getting started with color, you can try this out and hopefully feel a little bit less intimidated by doing an actual portrait. From there, you'll watch me do an entire portrait from start to finish, beginning with a simple sketch and then gradually adding, you know, bits of color to end with a final impression, you know of a portrait. Now the idea behind the class is to have some sort of methodology that if you're only going to have a few hours toe work with model, you know, or if it's just gonna be something that you sketch, you know from a photograph is that you have a realistic approach and a good sense of what you could potentially accomplish in a short amount of time without getting too models or having to commit several days or even weeks on a single portrait. So follow along. And hopefully this will be beneficial to you in getting some painting done. And thank you for watching 2. Brush Suggestions: all right. So I wanted to spend a little bit of time just talking about brushes. Um, now, the thing I will say about brushes is the brushes should always be relative to the size that you're painting. And now, given that we're working, um, you know, doing portrait sketches. Odds are you're not going to be painting very large. Or at least you shouldn't, depending on how much time you think you're actually going to be spending. So, you know, given let's just say if we're working within a range of maybe it's a 3 to 4 hour sketch Ah , you wouldn't necessarily want to go, you know, and paint very large, you know, like 16 by 2018 by 24. Just It's not practical because you're not gonna get, you know, a decent amount of information on such a large scale finished. So I have a tendency to work. Um, you know, if it's gonna be a portrait sketch, it could be 11 by 14 12 by 16. You know, kind of in that range 16 by 20 might be pushing it in terms of size, but I would feel like that's doable, depending on how in composing. You know, the sketch and everything like that, Maybe being a little creative with how it's vignette ID. So in relationship to that, what I wanted to discuss is, I always have a tendency to scale my brushes, depending on how big I'm working. And so on average, though, I feel like with the portrait sketch, you know something not too big, not too small is a good place to start. So I have a number of brushes here. Um, that would just be options. And, you know, it's it's in the ah, it's in the notes for the class. But, um, what I would comment on about doing a portrait sketch is sort of treating your brushes as, um, a series of things that where you could say, I have certain brushes for certain mixtures for certain parts of the painting. Because I feel like what that does is it creates, Ah, just a better sense of efficiency as you're painting. So, for example, you know, with like a larger brush like this, I might say, like Okay, well, you know, because it's a large brush, this is gonna be my background brush. And because it's the broadest brush that I have. It could put in a background fairly quickly and then, you know, as I work in other parts of the face, let's say like Okay, well, this is my shadow brush. And I'm only gonna use shadow colors for this particular color, Um, or for this particular brush rather. So that way, I don't muddy up mixtures, Let's say for, like, flesh tones or lighter passages in the painting, Um, and then, you know, depending on, you know, you know what the painting is and with lighting scenario is and all that there's all kinds of variables. But you could say like Okay, well, I have ah, brush for this is my flesh tone color brush. And then maybe something for, let's say, mid tones, Um and, you know, maybe miscellaneous colors. But I find, uh, by doing that, it kind of eliminates some things. We're always having to constantly clean your brush, make, you know, doing a new mixture, and obviously you're gonna be doing that anyway. But by giving your brush is sort of, like, you know, sort of color zones if you will, um, I find that it can help you work a little bit more efficiently. And then that way you're not muddying up a brush with completely, You know, opposite colors toe what you use them for previously. And it's not that you couldn't do that. You know, if you clean your brush well enough, you can just do whatever you please. Um, but I think in terms of, you know, as your, you know, mixing subtle variations of colors or anything like that, it does kind of help Teoh have brushes specifically allocated for that. So that that way, you don't have to worry about, you know, like, Oh, I'm mixing a really light flesh tone. Um, and, you know, and then I'm gonna mix of darker color and then some of that gets, you know, as you put down a new brush stroke, some of that gets accidentally, you know, mixed into something else because you didn't clean it thoroughly enough. You know, just things like that, so that you don't have to worry about it. And you can just focus on painting and not about Oh, I have to, you know, like, really, you know, spend all this extra time to really clean this brush because it was a shadow color. And now I'm mixing a flesh tone that's much lighter. And, you know, it kind of helps to just get get beyond that and so that you don't have to be thinking about these things as much. Hopefully, um, you know, you'd rather spend more time thinking about, you know, making accurate mixtures and putting down corrects, you know, well placed brushstrokes, Um, rather than kind of having a work fumble with your brushes as you're painting. So the one thing I will recommend is and I do have them here is you will want some smaller brushes for shore. But, you know, I only have a couple of you know, like so because, you know, the details aren't You know, it's not that important to really have these really fine brushes, because again, we're dealing with sort of a limited time frame. Teoh sort of painted. And this is really just intended to be a sketch. So, you know, if it were a fully finished realized painting, that was gonna be very subtly modeled, very subtle form, then Obviously we might want some more brushes and maybe some smaller, more detail oriented brushes. But with the sketch. I feel like you're kind of giving yourself a little bit more freedom in the sense that you should know from the beginning that it's not going to necessarily be the most detailed painting because you're under a time limitation, Um, or at least in a self imposed time limitation on. And so, by having too many smaller brushes, I feel like it you everyone is guilty of this is that you can kind of have a tendency to sort of noodle around a little bit too much. And so by having brushes that are a little bit more medium and size, um, you know, and again, again, this is all relative to the scale at which you're painting. But let's just say brushes that are a little bit more medium in size or even larger. Um, I find that, um, because the brushes air so much larger, you're not going to be able to get into these really finite details. And so by then you can hopefully just put down paint brush strokes that are a little bit more meaningful and described larger pieces of information. Um, and then and then and then kind of from there, you can always start adding more details on top of everything. Um, but this would be just a good starting point. So And if you're just starting painting in general, I feel like by doing this, you don't feel like you have to go out and buy, um, a ton of brushes because it's really not necessary. You can get very, very far with maybe five or six good brushes, um, and do a very competent painting with just those so thes air just again thoughts to keep in mind. But I haven't, You know, brushes that are gonna be good for the size of painting that you're gonna be working with and, um, air on the side of maybe using larger brushes, thin, smaller brushes. 3. Canvas suggestions: okay, so I'll just talk very briefly about canvas. Is not I don't really want to get too involved with it, because again, the overall premise is that we're dealing with a portrait sketch. So my recommendation would be to work with, you know, on canvas panels because, um, one canvas panels are very inexpensive. And you don't feel, you know, even if you mess up a painting or anything like that, you don't feel like Oh, man, I just, you know, spent, you know, $15 on a canvas and, you know, now I have to wipe the painting and try and reuse the canvass and anything like that by using inexpensive canvas. I feel like it kind of loosens you up a little bit because you figure if you know, campus panel is only a dollar, you know, a couple bucks and you don't feel as bad. Um, and you could certainly argue you know the other way, and then by using a nicer material, um, it does enhance the experience of painting, um, which it absolutely does. But I feel like early on in the stages of learning, um, it's best to just get the mileage on some inexpensive, uh, materials. Because then I feel like as you get better, you appreciate the better materials. Um, and, you know, and again, just for me about clocking in mileage in terms of practice, Um, it's more cost effective to do it on inexpensive panels. Um, now, obviously, if you find a deal somewhere, and you can get, you know, ah, you know, good stretched canvas or, um or, you know, loose canvas that you can stretch yourself. That's another thing entirely. But, um, anyway, so dealing with the portrait sketch, I would try and limit your size, though. And I think that's the main take away I would like people to think about is that if we're working within a very sort of, you know, anywhere from, let's just say 2 to 4 hours, you know, for a sketch is you don't want to be working too large, and so I would try and work, and this is like a This is an eight by 10 you know, and then these air, like nine by twelves, you know, and I would say like, this is a very comfortable size to do a sketch on You could certainly go up to something like 11 by 14 on maybe even 12 by 16. Um, you know some of those sizes. Once you get to a certain Ranger, it's gonna be very hard to find panels, but you can certainly find 11 by 14. That's a very common size on. And I feel like on the larger side, that's a very comfortable size. And where you can use larger brushes or anything like that. Um, on. Obviously, if you were talking about stretched canvas on stretcher bars, you can certainly find significantly more sizes. But you are gonna pay more for the stretcher bars and things like that, and this is basically just cotton duck canvas that's been mounted onto cardboard. If you are gonna do stretch canvas, I would probably stick to Cotton Duck. You could get like a linen, but you're gonna pay more for it. And I feel like that almost. I mean, it is nice, but it kind of defeats the purpose of just doing a sketch. Um, you know, But again, that's that's entirely up to you and what you want to work with. Um, the other thing is, too is, and I have these guys here is These are you can tell that these are a little bit more yellow, um, than these are. And these because I thought this was loose canvas that I mounted onto a board. Um, so I had some loose canvas, and I just mounted it onto some birch. Um, And then I went ahead, and I oil prime it with, um, with lead. Um, now, that's a little bit more, you know, time consuming, not as cost effective. But if you get you can find pre primed canvas that's loose, and you could essentially mount it to a panel. Oftentimes, if you can find loose canvas, sometimes it's almost best to just mount it. Just tape it toe aboard on Bond and just start painting. You know, don't even worry about if it's mounted to anything. Um, you know, like a panel like a wood panel or cardboard or anything like that. Um, if if I mean, if your if your intention is just the practice and it's not like you're going to be painting, you know, these beautiful gems and trying to sell them, you know, or anything like that, you could very well just take loose canvas tape it up to a board and just start painting and start practicing on. And that certainly that could be a very cost effective way, even compared to panels, because you can get loose rolled canvas. Um, you know, per yard. It's gonna be cheaper than buying it. That's pre stretched on anything, whether it's a panel or canvas. So that's something to consider as well. But, um, this would be on the nicer end of the spectrum because I did have, like, a scrap linen that I went and I primed. Um, you know, myself. And so this would be like a nicer panel, and this would be really fun to paint on. And it's going to be significantly smoother than cotton. Um, but you confined panels like this out there that are pre made, but they're gonna be significantly more expensive. And so again, I would kind of defer everyone that's just starting out is to stick with just really inexpensive panels you can find is that every art store thes I got at Blick, which now there's probably one in every most cities. But if not Internet is your friend. Um, you know, start with something like that on Ben. It's nice to then, as you get better, you can work up to maybe nicer campuses. But I feel like the best way to practice. And the first few years that I was painting, I was mostly painting on panels like this just to get my hours in, to move pain around on, get comfortable with the material on and then the brushes and everything. So those are my just just kind of my some suggestions to get started and then, you know, But use whatever you find that works best for you and what's comfortable, Um, and then we'll go from there. 4. Palette suggestions: so I didn't want to talk about just very briefly about, um, palette choices. Now, I would recommend anyone if you are just starting out toe work with a limited palate, and I will actually do a demonstration of color mixing with the limited palette so that people can see how just how flexible, Just by using a handful of colors how far you can actually get. Um, So what I will do, though, is I would make some recommendations that if you are just starting out, um, you could very easily just do a very black and white painting. So I have titanium white and ivory Black. Andi could very well do a wonderful portrait sketch with these two colors. Um, and you know, just it looks like a nice monochrome portrait. Um, and it would also keep things very inexpensive as these two colors are very inexpensive. If you were to just buy him at an art store online, um, beyond that, if you wanted to just try something different. You could also dio um, this is burn number on ivory in a titanium white. Rather, these two do make a nice color mixture when mixed together and you get a full value range, meaning burn number out of the tube is fairly dark. It's not quite as dark as black, but it is fairly close. And so you could use that as a full value range. So, um, and get everything in between. So, um, and I used to do that a lot when I was first, starting with oil paint. Um, I used to do a ton of monochromatic studies. Um, and I would do. I thought the burn number and the white looked a little bit more pleasing because the burn number is a warmer earth tone and it has a lot of red in it. Um, and so I think it just it's a little bit more pleasing to my eye. Then you know we're ivory black. Um, when you mix it with white, it is very cold. It's a very bluish cold mixture, Um, and so I just found that these were looked at least to me and my preferences. I always have a tendency to favor warm colors vs cool colors. Um, but I found that using these to look more pleasing to me in a monochromatic painting than just black and white. Um And so that brings me to this sort of in between. Color is this is a van dyke brown, Um, and this is very close to black, but it is still a earth tone brown. But I find that when you mix together with titanium white is that it actually makes a more neutral gray. Um, and there's a little bit more yellow in the mixture of Van Dyke ground so that the greys don't look very cold or blue. They kind of almost leaned towards a raw number. Which kind of raw number actually shifts more towards the green spectrum in color mixtures . And so this Van Dyke brown actually does make a very beautiful neutral grey when mixed with titanium white. And so you could do a very beautiful painting, um, with Van Dyke Brown as well on. And I was actually almost, at least for my for my taste. I actually almost prefer this to doing it with every black just because you don't just that whole, um, coolness factor of ivory Black just makes the paintings look very cold. And so I think, by having a little bit of warmth, I think on its own. It's a little bit more aesthetic of the painting when it's done. So, um, but it's just something to think about, you know, as you're choosing your palate, um, you know, is considered the Van Dyke Brown. If you don't want to do the burnt umber if it's too brown for you on, you want to still kind of stick with just a sort of black and white? Look, um, I do find that the Van Dyke Brown is just a little bit more aesthetically pleasing, so that's something to consider. Um, now, if you are going to paint in color, then these other colors I brought out, um, and this I will be doing a demonstration of mixing with this palette. Um, is this is essentially a limited palette of titanium white. This is a vermillion, uh, yellow Oakar and then the ivory black. Now, um, I will recommend that you know, the vermillion is a very expensive color, so you don't necessarily have to go out and buy such an expensive color. You could substitute it with a cadmium red light. I cadmium red medium, maybe, um, but the reason is there is that it's it's enough of, ah, bright reds, where it can be toned down quite a bit to get more of those Earth color reds. But it's bright enough. So if you need some of those really kind of pink kind of flesh tones or anything like that , it's bright enough and vibrant enough that you can do that. Um, you know, with this range. So, um, very often this is considered, this is called, um, you know, it's just a limited palate, but you can mix. You can mix everything pretty much from this palette. Now it is, um, a bit more work. But I do find that there's Ah lot of benefit in mixing and learning how to mix color, starting from a limited palate andan that way. Also to is you. You don't have to go out and buy, you know, 10 different colors, which can get very expensive. And so, um, if you start out small, you can, you know, and you can kind of slowly grow your paint collection as you need to. But if you're just kind of starting out and maybe just starting to play with medium, this is a great way to start to get exposed to color and learning how to mix, you know, your secondary and tertiary colors. And so I would recommend this as a starting point. Um, you know, if if someone wanted to start with color on and it's very easy to expand this palette very quickly, and this is what I will be painting my portrait with, Um, Now, if you do have experience with oil paints, by all means, use your, you know, use a palette that you feel comfortable with. Um, you know, if if I weren't using that, if I wasn't using this, I might use something very similar. And I might add a, you know, a cooler read like a lizard in crimson. And then, for a yellow, I might add a you know, a secondary yellow like cad, yellow light or cad, yellow deep, Um, and then maybe like an ultra marine blue and that gosh, even from that, I feel like that would be enough of a palette to kind of get everything I wanted. And this is all just regards to portrait painting Now. Obviously, if I was painting a landscape I wouldn't be using, I would be using a much broader palette in this because, um, you know, nature's obviously there's gonna be more colors involved, but to paint, like flesh tones, you know, and everything like that, this is more or less all I really need. I don't necessarily need to have a much broader palette. Um, it can be helpful. Absolutely. But in order to just get a a decent portrait sketch, I don't need to be pulling out a massive palette of colors. Um, and I find that, you know, especially giving, given a short amount of time for a portrait sketch. Um, sometimes having too many colors can be more of a hindrance than anything. Um, and so again, these air just kind of my recommendations obviously feel free to do, um, whatever you like and what you're comfortable with. But, um, if you're just starting out, I would kind of either start with this or start with the monochrome colors, Um, and just kind of just get the practice under your belt. You know, you don't, um you don't have to go ahead necessarily have a ton of materials in order to just get the practice in. And that's what I really want this to be about is just practicing, um, portrait, sketching and just getting comfortable with the medium 5. Color Mixing 1: So I have my limited palette here, and I'm just gonna mix a bunch of different color ranges out so that you can see just how much range you can get out of these four colors. And, you know, again, this is always just gonna be a suggestion. But, um, feel free to use whatever palette you like. Um, but I really like this palette for simple quick paintings, and I find that I don't need a whole lot, um, beyond this to get a decent result. And so usually what I like to start with is I will mix up a Siris of shadow colors. So, um, this will always be different, depending on the light source and everything like that. And there's all kinds of variables. But, um, assuming we're working from natural light or even if it's a lamp and it's a cool light bulb , you know, we're gonna have a tendency to have warmer shadows. So I mix up a small Siri's of shadow colors that, um, kind of gives me a somewhat of a range for my shadow patterns and, you know, depending on what adjustments need to be made, at least I have the mix is there, um, to get those started. And so all I'm really doing is I'm taking ivory black, mixing some vermillion and then adding little bits of yellow to create the changes for those shadows. And so, depending on you know what kind of lighting situation you're faced with, you can always, um, you know, modify these kinds of mixtures. Um, but I find that just by kind of going with these simple colors, you get a nice range of brown's that could be used for shadows Could be used for background , um, or anything else that you kind of see in the painting where those could be implemented. And so I kind of just put those off into the side because those are gonna have a tendency to be darker colors. And so I try my best to keep my darker mixtures away from my lighter mixtures just so that I don't accidentally intermix them. And so the next range I like to mix up is I do like to have a series of greens on my palette, and often times I find that, uh, some range of green for, like, a background, you know, if it's like a really high contrast portrait. I do like tohave, at least in some capacity, some green or other darker browns on. And sometimes, you know, depending you made kind of intermix, um, and kind of have them transition one into the other. Um, you know, along with black. But I do like to have green on the palate, and it does kind of also create a nice neutral for flesh tones with some lighter shades of green. And so I'm basically taking ivory, black and yellow Oakar, and that, in and of itself will create Green of some kind. And so, depending on, you know how chromatic of a green I want to get, I just start adding additions of yellow. And the things to note about this green is that it's gonna be kind of more of that kind of earthy, kind of a green. It's never gonna be as chromatic is something like a meridian green or Othello green. And so that's something to keep in mind. Any time you're using a little bit a limited palate, rather, there is an inherent sacrifice of certain colors that you're not gonna be able to mix, and part of the charm. I guess of that is knowing that there's a limitation and seeing how far you can go with it . And so, in this case, Green is one of those colors and where we're gonna hit a certain wall of green that we're gonna only be able to mix one kind of range. And so there's things we can do to, you know, to kind of modify it by adding white or little bits of red here and there. But it's never gonna be as chromatic as, um, again, something like Meridian Orth a lower or even, you know, sat. So anyway, kind of building up these darker colors. So I am kind of putting them off to the right hand side on. Guy will slowly start building out some flesh tones as well, so that you can see what that looks like and we'll go from there. So I'm going to start with some flesh tones, and I'm going to start off by making a general statement that essentially you can mix some kind of a flesh tone by just mixing yellow, red and white. And, um, that is a very broad statement, obviously, but, um, it does work and you can also mean realistically, you can also make flesh tones by mixing red and green and white. But, um, since we're kind of just using this limited palate, um, you know the faster way to mix those kinds of flesh tones are gonna just be those three colors. And so, depending on the model, you know, like I try and avoid using too much white at first because white has a tendency, especially titanium white, because it's a very opaque white. You can end up with really chalky cool flesh tones if you're not careful. And so I usually start by mixing a yellow and a red and then gradually start adding white to it. And then, depending on what needs to be modified, um, you know, then I can start adding a little bit of black. I can, you know, I could add a little bit of green on, get kind of neutralizes that mixture down so that it's not as chromatic Um, but then I also don't have to use so much white as well. Now the one thing I will say about flesh tones is that you will kind of want to reference your model quite a bit. So there's such a wide variety of skin tones. Um, which will also change relative to the light source in the background. Aziz. Well, so keep that in mind as you're mixing. But I do like to have, um, at least a small range of flesh tones to get me started. And then, you know, as I need to make adjustments, I can start adding little bits of color here and there so that I'm modifying them and getting them a little bit closer. Hopefully, toe what I'm seeing The nice part is, though, is that I don't have to start from scratch every time. And so, by having some of these pre mixtures on here, um, I can hopefully work a little bit quicker and more efficiently, and, um, and just really focus on the painting and not so much on just mixing. And so I kind of make a range of, you know, kind of yellow er, kind of, um, neutral flesh tones. Some are gonna be a little bit more pink that I might say for, like, you know, like the nose, or like a cheek area or some area that has a little maybe a little bit more of blood vessels in it that my tria flush sort of a look. And so the one thing that is a little tricky with this palette is that that vermillion color is a very chromatic red, and so it's not very cold, whereas if I would have something like a lizard crimson, I would have a much broader range of flesh tones to mix from. However, I can add little bits of black to cool that red down, Um, and it will give me a little bit, um, of those cooler reds that I that I might need in flesh tones, so I kind of just keep that in mind, um, as I mixing. 6. Color Mixing 2: one other thing that I like to do is I do like to have, um some mixture of black and white and for a couple of reasons and eso for in this particular case, is, um because in this pallet, we don't have blue. Um, we're gonna have to use black and white, and, um, depending on the color that it's next to black and white can look very, very similar to blue, especially if it's like a warm color. So, like an orangey fleshy color. Next to certain tense of yellow is this gray mixture that were making with black and white will optically look very close to a blue. We'll never get a full scale, you know, ultra marine, blue or cobalt blue sort of effect. But we can get something very close, especially in lighter mixtures. So I like to have some of that premixed on my palate. Um, and one is again to kind of have some sort of blue element on the palate, then also to by having some mixture of black and white, I can also use it as a neutral color to mix and other colors to sort of, um, key them down on by that, I mean, if a color is to to vibrant or two chromatic is, I could essentially mix a gray color of some kind and then add that to that color, and it will gradually neutralize how chromatic the color is appearing. So I do find it beneficial to have, um, just some neutral tents on your palate. So again, just kind of some some degree of mixture of black and white on. Then again, it will also act as a blue element in this particular instance, and so I'll just makes one little a small pile more. And do you con's coming slowly See as we're building out this range we're having. You know, we have added substantially to our palate. And so we have a good mixture of colors that we've built up, and you can really kind of go crazy with this and Premix an entire painting. If you wanted Teoh and you know, for a quick sketch portrait like this, you don't have to even do this much. You could just do a small handful. It really depends on how far you want to take it, but I do find, like I said in the beginning. I do find it beneficial toe. Have at least something, um, you know, mixed on the palate, Uh, ahead of time so that as you're painting, you can focus a little bit less on mixing and more on just painting itself. So we pretty much almost have a full palette. But I'm gonna mix one last thing here, Um, and this is gonna just be a just a little bit of a purple range. And the only reason I'm having it is I do like tohave, um, some purple, or at least something close to that kind of purple violet is that it does kind of again act is like a neutral color similar to gray, um, that it's great, you know, to mix into flesh tones, especially if there's a lot of yellow in an area you can kind of play on that complement of yellow and purple a little bit again, just kind of neutralized colors and everything. And so, oddly enough to kind of to make this mixture easier, I actually mix red and white first, and then I slowly add black to the mixture to kind of get that purple range. Um, I always found If I were to just do red and black first and then that white is that it's actually a little bit more difficult to get the right shade that I wanted, so it could be a totally silly thing, and it could be just mentally me. But I find it just mixing red and white first and then slowly making additions of black gets you a much cleaner mixture of purple than doing it the other way around. Um, and so again, I do like to have something on the palate in that range just because it it is like a colorful neutral versus just a straight black and white, Um, And so it can be an effective color to use and in certain instances, and so, um, that's kind of more or less it. You know, as you can see here, we're slowly filling up the pallet. Um, you know, with a lot of little mixtures and depending on, you know, again, your model and you're lighting and everything like that, you could easily mix um, a bunch of colors like this. You could just makes a handful, or you could decide to not do any of it. But I do want to recommend that you have, um, you know, released. Get used Teoh Pre mixing some colors if you've never done it before. I used to not do it when I first started painting, but I found that, um as I got more experience, I did find a lot of benefit in doing it just because it made the process a little bit quicker as I was painting from a model and I didn't have to be thinking about, you know, Oh, man, I need to remix, You know, piles of painting and everything like that, and just kind of came a secondary thing for me, but it's totally up to you. You can decide toe premix or not Premix. Um, you know, I again, if you're just starting out, that would be my recommendation. And so going forward, I would recommend this palette if you decide that you want to start with color and this would be a great first pallet to start with, um, if you have experience with oil painting and you have a preferred palette that you use by all needs, definitely use whatever is comfortable for you. Um, you know, if not if you're starting completely from scratch, I do recommend the burn number and white, black and white or the van dyke brown and white on. You'll see a video of both monochrome and color in the rest of the class. But again, if you're just starting and you want to keep costs down, start off really basic with just this monochrome palette or these four colors. And it's not gonna cost you a lot of money. But otherwise, that's kind of my suggestion. And hopefully this made a little bit of sense in terms of how you may want to approach, setting up a palette and organizing it and, um, and just getting used to the idea of creamy pre mixing before you start. So now we'll go ahead and just get to the painting. 7. Brush Strokes: So before we get started, I wanted to spend a little bit of time talking about breast stroke direction and kind of just a general sense of what I'm thinking about, um, as I'm painting and how I'm thinking about putting down brush strokes in a portrait. And it's one of those things that I really haven't heard. A whole lot of teachers, you know, kind of talk about, um, as much on. And so I wanted to just have, like, a short video just on this topic. And so I have a very sort of generic mannequin ized head that I've kind of sketched out on a canvas panel. And so I'm just going to kind of take you through some of my thoughts about what I'm thinking as I'm pushing a brushstroke down, Um, when I'm painting a portrait. So as I'm thinking about putting brushstrokes down, I'm really just trying to think about the form that I'm trying to describe. So if I'm working on say, like, ah, horizontal form, like the forehead here, I might decide to push brushstrokes across this way. But then I also have to consider that the form is also going vertical as well. And so, depending on the light situation or the angle of the model, um, sometimes I might choose to go in favor one direction versus another. And so you can kind of see, hear that I'm kind of building a little bit of across contour effect that's happening. But, you know, as planes change auras, things turn. Then I have to consider the brush strokes. And so let's say for here on the side plane, for example. You know, I'm I emphasize that there are very strong, you know, horizontal is that are gonna sort of give me an indication, you know of perspective. And, you know, let's say I might not, in certain parts get a better sense of that perspective. If I were to say, Choose a vertical stroke for is a versus a horizontal stroke. And so that's kind of what I'm thinking about. A lot of the times is the form and then the perspective, and then we also have to kind of consider, you know, the light scenario. But more or less, all your strokes are going to be contingent on the form that you're trying to describe. And so, as we get to certain areas. You know, there's some kind of different kind of changes that are gonna take place. And so we have to think about anatomy a little bit now, if you're not comfortable with anatomy or anything like that, then you can kind of just follow along. But you'll kind of see here, um, in certain parts of let's say, like the cheek where there's kind of a lot going on. And even though they're very broad plains, there's very specific directions that are kind of happening through the cheek area. And so you know, for example, through the cheek we might really have this sort of diagonal or angular sort of, you know, brush strokes as we're describing one individual plane of the cheek, and then as we come across, it's gonna wrap around to the other side, towards the nose, and then as we go through the top area here, we might get more flatter horizontal strokes. But you can kind of see, as I'm building up these contour lines, how it will describe, you know, the form of that particular plane. And so that's kind of what I'm thinking about as I'm painting. But I'm just instead of, you know, obviously drawing lines. I'm thinking a little bit broader with, you know, larger brushes, and I'm putting down specific brushstrokes, and that's more or less. Um, you know what I'm thinking about, um, you know, kind of the whole time, except the other things I'm taking into consideration is for this specific area that I'm painting is what is going to give me the best effect to describe form with a given brush stroke. And so that kind of then will, you know, kind of tells me, Well, you know, would it be better described if I push, you know, diagonal sort of breast stroke or a vertical or horizontal? And what is the piece of information that I'm trying to describe? So what piece of anatomy on my in my painting and what is that form? You know, per se. And so that's kind of what I'm gonna base my decisions on before I actually put anything on the canvass. And so is I kind of continue along here, depending on the direction the models facing, depending on my light source. You know, it does kind. I do have to think about whether or not I'm gonna go with more vertical strokes or horizontal strokes. And again, what piece of anatomy is gonna be emphasized? And so you know, for example, here is if these two planes of the cheek and then the lower part of the jaw you know, it might make sense to push more vertical strokes to describe the length of the jaw versus if I were to go horizontal. It might create sort of a widening effect through the jaw, but it really just depends on the model and kind of what's going on in the pose. But, um, those kinds of choices you learn to make as you kind of develop your eye and, um, just kind of get more comfortable. Um, you know, painting and just pushing the pain around. And so the nose is an area where you can kind of describe things in a number of ways because there's multiple planes in a very small area. And so I usually find that the bridge of the nose is best described with vertical strokes because it will establish a very distinct plane change than from the side planes, which are definitely going to fall maybe a little bit more horizontal as they transition into the rest of the cheek plane through the side here. And so again, it really just really kind of just depends on you. And you have to make, like, a very distinct choice so that you get clear separations of those planes. And it makes sense to the viewer what they're looking at in terms of front side, you know, bottom plane, you know, whatever piece of information you're describing. And so, you know, once you have those two areas you know solved and the rest of the nose like the the ball, this portion of the nose, you can kind of describe very similarly. But, um, I feel like an area like that because it's more of a detail. It can really depend on the models type and just how plainer their nose is in terms of how much information you'd end up describing for that particular area. And so, as we get down to the mouth here, what we're really trying to emphasize is we want to emphasize that the mouth is this rounded form that is sitting on the front plane of the face. And so we would kind of call this area, the tooth cylinder of the mouth and that's encompassing like the lips and just be low, the lower lip, the muscles down there. And we really just wanted describe this rounded form. And so in certain instances, I find that using horizontal strokes around these areas are gonna better describe that particular form because it's really, um, we have to think about almost think of it if it was like 1/2 of a circle or a sphere sitting on a front plane and, you know, think about shading a ball and how you might describe you know, a very simple spear form. And that's kind of how I'd be thinking about my brush strokes in this area. And then the only thing that's really breaking that up is that we have the actual lips sitting on top of that individual form, and then then so just below here, to the chin, the chin is kind of almost a repeat of that effect. And so we have. You know, the chin is essentially kind of a smaller sphere that is connecting just below the mouth, and so I'm treating it the same way, and so you can kind of see here just the contrast between the two sides. I wanted to leave one side, very simplified, so you can see where we started. And then just now, on this other side, you can see the different contour lines that have kind of built up. But that's really you know, truly what I'm trying to think about as I'm putting brush strokes down and trying to make very accurate descriptions of a piece of form. And so, you know, hopefully you can do that as well as your as your painting. And it is a lot to think about. Um, you know, if you're struggling, withdrawing, um, and just, you know, drawing features and things like that in general, I already know that. You know, that part is hard in and of itself. And so this is just another layer of information that as you get more comfortable with the process in terms of starting, you know, with your with your basic drawing and establishing, you know, your shapes and everything like that. You know, this whole idea of brushstrokes and inform and anatomy are basically just additional layers of information that are gonna hopefully lead you to more successful portrait's. So you know, if you're kind of struggling with some of those earlier steps in the process, then by all means just really focus on those first and kind of just take it one step out of time. You know, there's really no rush to try and do, you know, five or six different things all at once and so. But I did want people to see this just so that they have an idea and know that you know these air kind of extra things that you will start to think about as you just get more comfortable with procedure and just getting more comfortable with actually doing portrait's and sort of adding these extra little things that will hopefully make him that much better . 8. Simple Forms in Monochrome 1: So this video is gonna be just a simple demonstration of painting a simple head and focusing on simple forms. And I'm going to do this in black and white, and so I have a stained canvas in front of me that it's just a burnt number and this is going to essentially be my palate now. I went ahead and I mixed. This is actually Van Dyke brown and titanium white, and I just mixed a very small range of values. Um, so that you can see, uh, I'm gonna premix these so that it makes the painting process a little bit more efficient. And, you know, I have something to just grab immediately, and I don't have to mix constantly in order to paint. And I'd recommend anyone who is, you know, kind of on the fence about starting with color is to do something similar to this and so that take take your too You know you're black or white or what have you, and just mix a small range. You don't need to mix a full range, let's say, like nine or 10 values or anything like that. You can just mix a handful. Andi will probably be mixing from those piles anyway. But by doing this, I feel like it does kind of make the process a little bit more efficient and you get used to just kind of mixing values. And then as you go and you start reaching for piles paint, you don't have to think about it as much you can just kind of focus on, you know, assessing You know what you're looking at and finding the right value. Um, and I feel like that's just a good way to kind of get started, and it carries over Very well. Um, you know, into color and everything else like that. So the rest of the rest of the demonstration is gonna be just kind of a simple form head using values, and you'll kind of see that as it takes place. So getting started because this is going to be a focus on portrait sketches and not necessarily really finished portrait's or anything like that. I'm basically going to draw in a rough sort of drawing just with my brush. And we're you know, alternatively, if this was a really long developed portrait, I would actually start with a pencil drawing and then be transferring in. But that's a little bit more involved. And so, with something like a portrait sketch knowing that we're only going to spend, you know, maybe, um, you know, a few hours on building a simple painting we really just want to just start off by drawing a symbol kind of drawing on the actual canvas, just using our paintbrush on. Then we're going to just be adding the paint as we go along and just like any other head drawing, I kind of start off with the large forms and kind of some basic landmarks like the you know , the brow line, the bottom of the nose, bottom of the chin, and I basically just start deconstructing the head into very simple plain structures. That way just kind of have a better idea of how things are going to sit in the painting in really just to get a better sense of some rough proportions before I get too much information in the rest of the drawing. And so realistically, I would kind of spend you know, more or less as much time as I needed on this stage of the painting, because this is going to serve a sort of the scaffolding for everything else. So if this part of the painting, um, starts falling apart, proportion wise or anything like that, I want to do my best to kind of make those corrections in the earliest stage possible before I start adding extra paint. And so I'm gonna basically create a light source where I put that arrow, and I'm gonna basically fill in the rest of the head with the values I've mixed based off of that. So that way, we're creating a very simple light and dark effect within, um, this little head sketch here. And so the idea behind us is basically to think about the forms of the head in a simple is way as possible. So I'm going to be ignoring details like, you know, the actual, like, say, eyeballs or like the nostrils or the mouth itself, like the lips. And I'm just thinking about the forms that are actually underneath those details. So you know that the head itself is sort of a large egg shape. The eyes themselves are spheres that are embedded in sockets. The mouth is a very rounded cylindrical form that is sitting on the front plane of the face , and I'm really trying to simplify it down into, um, really basic form. So that way, as I'm putting paint down, I'm not thinking about the details of the head, but I'm thinking about the large masses and how they're turning in space in accordance to the light situation that I've created. And so what I can really treat this, as is because we're dealing with these rounded forms, is you really just have to think about how something moves from light to dark and the kind of Grady INTs that we're gonna be making. Um And so just if we were doing this in pencil, um, we're essentially going to be doing now the same thing with paint. And so I'm going to start from the shadow side of the head. And as things start turning in tow light, my values are going to get progressively lighter. And the idea being is that if I built up that value gradation, um, you know very carefully and methodically is that we would get a very simplistic sense. Ah, form and formed, turning in space relative to the light source. And so from the shadow side. I'm kind of just starting with some darker values. Um, and as I start adding more information, we're going to get progressively lighter. Um, the only difference being is that, as I'm working across the head is I'm thinking about the forms that the head is making. So as I reach certain areas and I reach, um, you know, areas where there was going to be playing changes that are taking place, I'm gonna try and convey those those changes with different values of paint. And so you can see here is even in this very small passage, As I'm working from the shadow side, I'm gradually just lightning those values, and I'm trying not to blend them too much together. But as I'm putting strokes down, they will kind of naturally do that. And what's more important is just creating that gradation effect from light to dark. And so as I get into this little I hear, I'm basically thinking that you know, the isa sphere. And if I were shading a spear with a pencil, uh, I would essentially just have that great Asian of value as that forms turning. And so I'm simply doing that with the paint and with the values that I've premixed is I'm just trying to create the same effect. And, you know, it will obviously kind of take a little bit of manipulation, you know, with the brush to kind of get a nice, rounded effect. But more or less, that is kind of the thought process that I'm thinking about as I'm painting. And so is that reach certain forms like the knows that are much more plainer. I'm essentially going to simplify that down into a side plain. Ah, front plane. And then once I get to the other side, it will be another side plane, Um, and that kind of more or less solved that area. The nose is one of those things that, depending on the person's type and everything like that, there's lots of subtle changes that can take place. But you can kind of more or less simplify it down into four planes just to make it a little bit easier on yourself. And so I'm trying to do is make a very clear distinction about what is side, what is front and then what is bottom here and then That way you can kind of tell, just with the very subtle value changes is we're getting that effect. Um, that's taking place. You know, I'm just gonna get a little bit more in the forehead and keeping in mind that the forehead is a very large, almost flatter form than some of the smaller forms in the head. So the the great Asian across a large area like that is gonna be a bit more gradual than smaller forms like the eye or the mouth or anything like that. Yeah, so as, um, kind of building it up, you can see the effect starting to take place, But let me get into the mouth. And, um, the mouth is gonna be one of those areas to where it's very similar to how I, you know, did the eyes and in the sense that it's going to be a spiritual type form. It's just gonna be a bit larger because you think about how the mouth is sitting on the front plane of the face. It's It's a much broader form than the eyeballs, obviously, but, um, realistically speaking, the mouth is essentially, um, very spherical, just like the eyes. Except it's just going across the front plane of the face, Um, and think about the edges of the mouth, sort of encapsulating that sphere just like the edges of, you know, The sockets, you know, of the eyes would hold the sphere of the I. And so a lot of the values down here because they're so far away from, you know, the light source that we implemented. You know, with our arrow, the values they're gonna be a little bit more compressed. And so there's not gonna be as big of a jump in some of these areas. Um, once we get across to the other side of the face because it's closer to the light source, we're going to start to lighten things up quite a bit more. Um, most of the information down here in the mouth and the chin is going to be a little bit more on the darker side. 9. Simple Forms in Monochrome 2: And so some of the values as we get closer to the light side, um, of the face, we'll get a little bit lighter down here, but not a whole lot. You know, I'm still keeping in mind that, um a lot of the areas down the year are very far away from the light source, so they can't be just by nature that all that bright. So, um, as I start introducing some lighter values on the face, it will kind of pull this area together. But for right now, I'm just kind of trusting my eye to put in values that are pretty close in the ballpark. The main thing you can see, though, is that we have a very simplified form that looks somewhat round through the mouth there. And so once we kind of get into the cheek in some of these brighter areas, we're gonna kind of open up the value range and cause I know right now that some of the left side of the face might look a little dark, But once we start introducing some some lighter values, it will hopefully make sense. Um and so we just kind of continue along to start adding some more paint. As I get closer to the light source up here in the forehead, I'm gonna gradually try and build up to the light. But I generally have a tendency to like to build the form as best as I can before I start introducing anything like highlights. Um, you know, or kind of extra details to to, like, area. So you can see here if I just put this light piece of paint, it kind of starts, you know, it stands out right away. And so I don't like to do that too soon. If I can help it, I'd rather build up the forms, Aziz. Best I can. And then hopefully, if I do everything correctly by the time I start adding highlights, I don't have to do a whole lot more to get a nice sort of rounded effect. And so was I. Get to this other. I hear this one's gonna have a little bit more light in it because it's so much closer to the light source. But again, it's still going to be the idea that the I is this rounded form that is wedged inside a socket. Um I'm just now going to be doing it with a little bit lighter of values because of how much closer it is to the light source compared to the other I. But the same effect is more or less happening. Um, in here is well, and some women just kind of introduce a lighter value through this cheek area, giving myself a little bit of room so that I will light in it a bit more. But again, just like the forehead is, I want to work up to those really bright passages. And I'd rather not just put in a super bright color right off the bat and just kind of looking for a light value just so that the side plane of the nose there just jumps out enough to see a distinct separation. And so if I put a little you know, lighter piece of paint there, you can kind of see how immediately jumped out. And and that's okay, cause I kind of feel like I need it for that one particular area. And I'm gonna work right up into that little separation in the cheek plane there because as that cheek then starts turning down towards the jaw. There's gonna be a little bit of drop off of light that I have to consider. And so those values will start to darken from that point down. And so just a little bit of a lighter value towards the mouth to kind of separate that mouth form just a little bit more. And so, as we get to the side plane of the head of here, it's gonna be fairly close to the front plane in terms of value. But, um, it will have a subtle variance in it because we still have to show a distinct separation between the front and the side as it's turning in space. And so the same thing will happen here as we get to the to the cheek area on is that even though it's facing the light, we still have to think about as the cheek is turning down towards the jaw, there needs to be some sort of transition value to show that distinct turning effect. And so, you know, the light is gonna is gonna naturally sort of great eight downwards towards like the mountain, the lower part of the jaw and the chin, and depending on the person's type, you could see a very sharp distinction. It could be a very smooth transition. Um, you know, there's all kinds of variables, but you can kind of see that effect just with the values on that I've put in place here. And just so this thing gets entirely filled in, I'll just kind of indicate this here, over here with just a few little value changes. But once we get the whole thing filled in, I feel like then we can kind of transition into All right, Well, let's start looking at smaller areas that perhaps could have been painted better. Or I could have, you know, made smoother transitions or anything like that. I'll put in a few highlights here just so that we can kind of see a fuller value range. Um, but that's kind of more or less if you're gonna do like a simple sort of portrait sketch like this and we ignore the details, you can get a very convincing painting. Um, I just focusing on simple forms and not getting caught up in too much detail or anything like that. And so if you're just starting out, I would actually recommend trying something like this and, you know, maybe ignore painting with full color at first and just try doing something like this in black and white as an exercise. And I think you know, you'd be surprised about what kind of effect you can achieve with very little detail at all . And so I would recommend someone that's just starting out. Or maybe you've never painted before to give this exercise a riel chance before you move on toe color or to actually try and, you know, paint full features, um, and other small details like that. And this is a great exercise to just get the practice of moving pain around in a very sort of simple exercise form. And, uh, yeah, this is a lot of fun. So I hope that you were able to get something out of it, and you'll see a bit more once I do the actual portrait sketch 10. Color exercise: so I wanted to show you a simple color exercise that you conduce do as a way of practicing color without feeling, you know, overly committed to doing, you know, a portrait. Or if you feel that you know, right now, you don't have enough, you know, painting experience under your belt that you could still use color in practice. Um, and just get a little bit more comfortable with it, Aziz, your kind of moving along with your painting and so all I'm doing here is I'm just going to sketch just a very sort of simplified mannequin head so that you can see what I'm gonna be doing with color. And so I still I'm still using a limited palette that you saw in the earlier video. So I'm using the exact same palette on, and I have a few little colors mixed up, so I'm just gonna establish a couple of landmarks so that we have a very sort of simplified version of a man agonized head, and then I will kind of show you what I'd be doing with this exercise. So with my little, you know, head here that I have in place as I'm thinking about color. Um, the one thing you don't want to get caught up and and this is in regards to painting. Ah, portrait or painting. Anything for that matter is I don't want to get caught up in the idea that I'm actually painting ahead. And so what I'm gonna be doing is I'm basically just gonna be thinking about individual color notes and so, as I see form turning on, and this is obviously dependent on the light source and everything like that. So assuming my light source is coming from above is I want to focus on just putting down simple color notes. And I don't want to be thinking about, you know, the anatomy of the head, the the idea that there is a you know, eye socket and the nose or anything like that. I want to think more abstractly. And the idea behind that is is that all of us have a tendency to get caught up in over thinking about things that we're trying to describe in terms of information. And so what we want to try and accomplish is to just think purely in an abstract manner that if I put down all these color notes in hopefully the right spot. I will ultimately end up with something that resembles, you know, a portrait. But I don't want I'm trying to essentially trick my brain into not thinking about the actual thing that I'm trying to paint. And so what I'm focusing purely on at this point is you know each individual color note that I'm going to be put down is, you know, essentially representative of a plane change. It's also representative of Let's Say, a value change or chroma change, depending on my light source and shadows and things like that. And I just want to think about that. I want to eliminate everything else in terms of information or anything that might resemble , you know, a portrait or anything like that. And I want a purely think in an abstract manner that I am just putting down little swatches of color that will ultimately look, you know, like something hopefully and so the goal of this realistically is to not even really paint ahead, and you can you can get to a point with this exercise that it becomes a very abstract sort of a practice in This is often what I would do in a longer portrait. Aziz. Well, so I if I knew I was going to be spending, you know, several days or weeks on an individual portrait. I always start off by doing a simple color study to get an idea of, You know where you know the most chromatic colors are gonna be. What is the overall light effect in the portrait? And I do it in this exact same way. But there's no reason that even though we're focusing on a, you know, a very short portrait sketch that you couldn't treat it as the sort of same thing in the sense that treat it like a little color study. If you were going to be doing a longer portrait. So I'm not getting get caught up in any details or anything like that. It's just big swatches of paint that are going to represent color and value and how form is turning. And so by the time we get this filled in, we're just gonna have a very kind of abstract, simplified sort of shape that might resemble ahead. But it's by no means gonna look like an actual portrait on that's The whole point is so that you want to just move away from thinking about painting ahead and just thinking abstractly about the information that you're trying to represent. And even though we're kind of on the topic of, you know, portrait's and things like that, this is an exercise that you can do with pretty much anything. I've done it with still lifes. I've done it with figures, Um, and it's a great way to get little bits of information and in a sense that you don't have to get super detailed to get a very nice impression of the thing that you're trying to paint. No, obviously, I'm doing this fairly small, and so you may off to do this with some larger brushes and, you know, work on a larger canvas. And so, depending on how large working on, you want to scale up your brushes as you're painting. But I find that's what's what could be really fun is that you can put down very large pieces of paint, um, and still get, you know, are very, you know, solid representation. You know of the portrait that you're trying to capture, and I also feel like What you benefit by that is that you get away from the idea that, um, you know that detail is the answer, because in a lot of instances, more detail is not necessarily going to make a better portrait. But if the pieces of information that you put in are very specific in terms of value and color and shape is that you can actually get pretty far with very little information. And I feel like there's a lot of benefit in that just as an exercise and and that's something that could be applied to anything. So not even just painting, but like you're drawing and everything else that you might do in art. And so one of the thing that I wanted to show you, um, in dealing with the head is and this is something I used to do when I was kind of painting and wash and doing more illustration type of portrait's and things like that. But you want to start thinking about different areas in the head and their specific color ranges that you would see, um, you know, as you're painting and so, just as an example, is if I'm painting and the light sources from above. I want to be thinking about you know where my shadow is. And then also, what kind of temperature range I'm going to encounter as light is going from bright and then gradually falling off towards where my shadows would be. Now, this will vary from person to person, and obviously skin type is a big factor. Um, but you're still going to see, um, the light effect overall with anyone, because our our our heads are all very, you know, kind of that organic round shape to begin with. And so depending on the light source, we are gonna have an area of a brighter, you know, concentrated light. We're gonna have a middle range, and then we're going to have a darker range in which we would see color, start to get less chromatic and get significantly darker as things were turning in space. And so if we go with the idea of, let's just say you know, a Caucasian flesh tone that towards the top I would see a yellow yellow are brighter white ish, yellow sort of a spectrum from the top here. And then, as I got down to, let's say, like the cheek region. I would get a little bit more of a red banding, as you know, areas in the cheek and the nose. And even the ears are significantly more flush in their complexion than, say, like the forehead. And then So as we get down to the lower part of the head, obviously this area would be a little bit farther from the light source, and so things start to cool down, so I might get more of a blue green, almost purple range, depending on the person. And if it's a male, you know, if males have you know some stubble or like a five oclock shadow or anything like that, that area would get significantly cooler. Um, in this particular region, the only exceptions. You may end up seeing where they could be different is, you know, females and then, but you would still see that drop off in light in color. But it would just lean towards maybe, let's say, some paler cooler reds or cooler greens of some kind. But it's something to keep in mind as you're painting. Is that for the most part? Ah, lot of people's heads are gonna have a sort of banding of colors that you can input as a way of just generalizing the areas. And then, obviously you would, you know, make differentiations in terms of playing changes and, you know, as things are rolling in and out of light, um, and then obviously their relationship to the light source. But you can kind of think about this general effect that's happening in someone's head on, and it becomes very obvious, depending on how your model is lit as you're painting. And so I would recommend If you're just starting out with color, give these exercises a shot. Um, and and as you get more confident, you know, with kind of just mixing your colors and painting flesh tones and things like that, you can start deviating and and actually go a little bit more in line with the demonstration video you'll see later. But this is a great way to get started. If you've never painted in color, Onda hopefully make the process a little bit easier to tackle on Ben. It will hopefully, you know, make you feel a little bit more comfortable moving forward as you start to get things a little bit more complicated. 11. Portrait Sketch 1: all right. So as we begin the portrait sketch, I do want a preface that the portrait itself was done in about three hours. And when you're working with a limited amount of time like this, say it's in a class environment where you know it's only gonna be one sitting. Um, you do want to give yourself some certain liberties in the actual painting. And so there's things that I don't necessarily chase, Um, when I'm working this way and so I don't try and, you know, over think about getting a likeness too much because it's just it's such a difficult thing to do, even when you have enough time that, um, I don't necessarily worry about that. And I don't try to match colors verbatim or anything like that. What you want to treat a portrait sketch, as is just an impression on DSO? That's kind of what the overall effect is is gonna be by the end of the painting. And so, as I'm beginning, you know, the initial, you know, painting. I'm just kind of giving myself a rough drawing I'm using, essentially like a shadow color that I mixed up to use as sort of my drawing color, if you will. And so I'm just giving myself some guidelines to sketch in the head. And the nice part about doing like an olive prima sketch like this is that anything could be moved at any time. And so if I make a mistake or anything like that, I can easily just take a little bit of mineral spirits in, erase my lines or take a cloth in, erase my lines and then try again. And so I don't get too caught up in making a perfect drawing just yet in this stage. And so the general idea this early on in the painting is to just get something established on the canvas. And so I'll use a Zeman e elements. You know, that can soas faras shadow patterns to kind of help me with my placement on everything. I don't try and get to details in this particular part of the painting. It's really just about establishing the large masses and just getting a rough idea of what the painting is gonna at least look like in a drawing sense. And I kind of save all those details as I paint actually get to the color stage of the painting. And so we're still just kind of measuring and putting marks down and just getting, you know, kind of It's all placement, you know? And so you don't want to get overly committed or feel like Okay, if this isn't perfect, I can't move forward. Uh, really, As you you're gonna be making changes constantly as you're painting along and whether that's in this stage or even as you're adding color to the portrait, you're gonna be constantly making changes. And so you never want to feel overly committed, Teoh Just anything, because anything can be taken out fairly easily. And you just want to come and just get a very sort of quick impression and just keep it, you know, fairly loose, Um, and, you know, just very noncommittal so that you can feel free to make those changes as you go. - So with a rough drawing more or less established, I'm going to move on and start applying some actual color to the painting. And so, as a general rule, I do like to start with my shadow colors. Um, obviously, they're gonna be on the darker come at one of the darker elements of the entire painting. And so I have a tendency to always work from dark to light, and that's more of just a personal preference. But I find that it is a good strategy to start with, because it's so much easier to gauge your other values and colors against your shadows because that you're already kind of knowing that. All right, As I'm putting in the shadows, I'm establishing, more or less some of the darker areas in the painting. And so once I have those and I can feel a little bit more comfortable putting in some color notes, engaging them against the actual shadow values that I'm establishing early on. And so I'll do that with, you know, a few areas in the painting. So, you know, like the dark color of the eyebrows in areas like that, the hat is also gonna be a fairly dark value, and so this is just kind of setting the stage for all the other values and colors that I'm gonna put in the flesh tones. But by at least having these dark masses established early on in the painting, I'm sort of establishing an overall value range for the rest of the painting. And so with just those few, you know, dark notes and I'm gonna go ahead and move on to, uh, the interior sort of flesh tones. But I'm going to start from the shadow side and gradually work my way towards the lighter values. And so what I'm looking for is I'm just trying to think about how the light is gray dating out from the shadow. And so I'm thinking about the value transitions, but then also color as well. And so as flesh tones are rolling out of shadow, there gonna be a little bit kind of darker, um, lower chroma colors. And then as they get closer and closer to the light source, they're gonna brighten, and their chroma is going to increase in colors that things will look a little bit more colorful. But this early on in the painting is I'm still trying to think very general, so I don't get I'm not gonna get too caught up in, you know, sort of very minor transitions or anything like that. I'm trying to just getting big, you know, sort of generally big brush strokes established so that I can get the thing filled in, um, once things air filled in and I can see you know how the transition's air working a little bit better, I can start making those adjustments as I feel like I need to, um, But I just want to keep everything very general. And so just knowing that I don't have, you know, a whole lot of time, I'm not going to get too involved in rendering. I'm thinking more in just big, you know, sort of big splotches of paint and how things are transitioning. And I don't want to really go beyond that as the painting progresses all definitely, you know, add details, obviously. But it's not gonna be a fully modeled painting because I'm limiting my time because it's a sketch. And so I just don't I'm not gonna have the time to do that. So you're going to see me just put in relatively large passages of paint so that we're getting just an overall effect that's happening. And so I'm continuing along here. I'm not going to necessarily fill in the eyes or this one I here on this side just yet. I have a tendency to save the really small areas like that for last is generally for me the eyes of the one of the more fun things to paint. So it is kind of a safe, the best for last thing. But but also to is that I find that if I get two involved in small details, like eyes early on, it's very easy for me to get caught up in other small details. And so I want to just work very broadly and so I kind of skip around to other parts of the painting so that I can establish everything else first before I start working in these smaller areas. And so it's just in this forehead area. It's a fairly broad plain, so I don't have to worry too much about any difficult transitions. But it is going to increase in how light it gets because at the top of the forehead is getting much closer to the light source. So I do introduce some lighter values then what I've have established so far in the painting. But again, what this does is it kind of opens up the range and it gives me an idea to make better comparisons to other values and the rest of the painting. As I continue 12. Portrait Sketch 2: so working my way down here. Even the nose is composed of smaller details. But I like to keep things fairly broad early on. And then once the general masses are established, I will start dividing into some of the smaller planes and adding smaller details so that there's more obvious transitions in the plane structure of the nose. But early on again, just kind of. We're still in this early phase of getting the painting covered and just establishing large masses. So I try not to get too overly involved in any one area this early on. You'll notice. So far, though, that I have very little in terms of the actual color. Changes in the flesh tone is that they're not deviated too much. It's just very gradual transitions, just enough to show a smaller plane changes. So I'm adjusting the temperature, um, of those colors a little bit. But if you squint down, the value ranges are fairly subtle because there's not a whole lot of deep shadows in the actual face itself, or at least on the front plane. But so it's really just more of just shifting the colors a little bit more to create that transition of plain that I'm looking for so continuing along here, just putting in some smaller plane changes in the nose. There's not a whole lot of, uh, deviation and value. It's more or less consistent as it's going down the boldest portion of the nose. But there is just smaller shifts in temperature, especially, is like the Bobo's portion of the nose is generally gonna be a little bit more flush because of the blood vessels there. So I introduce a little bit of of red or reddish colors in that area. Once we get down to the lower portion of the face near the goatee and everything like that , we will see more dramatic shifts in temperature as things are getting further away from the light source and we do introduce some cooler colors. But for now, in this part of the face, were still in kind of a very similar range in terms of temperature and value, so just kind of working in gonna work in the interior socket, just like I did with the other. I, um, I won't necessarily put in the eye itself just yet, but gradually just work around it and start putting down some of the broader passages through this area. And once you know again, once everything else gets filled in, then I will gradually put in the eyes. But for me again, it's it's sort of, Ah, one of the more fun parts of the painting. So I do like to save it, and ah, and I do kind of lean towards putting it in last. But there's some cooler temperatures up in here. Um, and that's just more kind of what I'm seeing in his face. So just kind of more of the reddish purples that I kind of see as it's transitioning on the socket and because also the brow ridge itself is gonna kind of block a little bit of light from coming in, but not not too much. But as you can see here, the strokes that I'm putting down are fairly broad. And so I'm not trying to deliberately, um, you know, trying to model in this particular stage or anything like that. I'm trying to just be very vague, and by putting down these very broad brush strokes, it gives you an idea of more distinct playing changes, which is kind of what I'm after at this particular stage as we're still trying to fill in the rest of the face. And realistically, you don't even have Teoh, uh, go beyond that You can. I've seen paintings where you get just really broad brush strokes. But you get a good general sense of what's taking place in the form that there's a beauty in that on its own. And so that's kind of what I would least strive for, especially early on. And so, as I'm working down this side of the face, I'm gonna try and get broader strokes because this this cheek plane is in full light, so there's no shadow or anything like that. And so Aiken kind of be a little bit more open with my brush strokes, and I don't have to ah, maybe create as many transitions. There will be some temperature changes as the cheek plane is rolling away from light towards the jaw in areas down there. But we also get the brighter portion of the cheek that's closer to the nose in the eye, as that cheek plane is closest to the light source in the painting. And so, as I'm gonna fill in this this cheek plane here. This is a more light facing plane, the cheek so on, kind of using a little bit more white in my next year. But I'm trying to be conscious of not using too much white, so it's a very sort of soft pink yellowish mixture that I'm using eso that I doesn't get too chalky, but it's still showing a specific plane change on getting brighter and value. But as things get brighter in value, their color is going to shift on, and you're gonna lose a little bit of color for the sake of getting brighter in that value range. And then so is I. Get to the goatee here. Facial hair is always a little tricky. Eso I kind of have a tendency to start off a little bit lighter than it actually is on. Then, as I get information filled in, then I can put in some dark accents to really show the facial hair a little bit more descriptive. That's why I kind of started with a little bit of a lighter grey green color in the top of the mustache here, and you'll see that a bit more as I get to the goatee is that I will kind of just dance around in temperature ranges before getting to committed in that area. 13. Portrait Sketch 3 : And so as I'm getting to the lower part of the face here Ah, a couple things are gonna happen. Obviously this this portion of the face is gonna be the furthest from the light source on. It's also fairly close to the shadow area in the lower part of the jaw and then the neck. And so my colors are gonna have become a bit more muted overall on then. Obviously, my value range is going to get a little bit more dark and then compressed. And so I'm just gonna be very mindful as I'm putting down bits of information to pay attention to those small changes that are taking place. And so again, you know, areas like that I'm gonna be conscious of, like the values and color temperature ranges that I'm putting in on. Then again, along with the facial hair. It's one of those things that I have a tendency to start a little bit on the lighter side than what I'm seeing and then just gradually built up some of the darker values that I'm going to see in the beard, in the goatee and everything like that. I find that by starting a little bit lighter. It's easier for me to build in the rest of the flesh tones with the facial hair and then go back on top afterwards to start adding some darker accents to get a little bit more of that facial hair effect. As I'm painting in season as I'm down, Harold kind of just fill in the neck. This area, as you can tell, like because it's a sketch. I'm not getting too involved with the clothing or anything else like that. I'm really just kind of stopping around the shadow pattern and then the neck. But I'm still going to put it in so that it's not just, ah, floating head in the sense of there's no neck attached to it. So I do have to put that in much more of a You know, it's kind of a smaller value range through there because it's fully in light on dime, really just thinking about the cylinder shape of the neck and kind of how it's turning to and from the light source in that area. As I'm putting in things like lips, I like to just put in almost like a light wash to establish the general shape of the lips. So I'm not using too much opaque paint in this in this particular area right now, as I get the shape established and I feel comfortable with the overall drawing of the lips and everything like that, I'll start putting in some accents and some of the smaller plane changes in the value range of that I'm seeing. But it is because the lips are still kind of like a detail. Um, I kind of tread lightly. You know, at first, if you will and kind of just slowly put them in and just try not to be too abrupt on, and you'll see me do the same thing as I get up to the eyes. But smaller sections like the lips in the eyes. I kind of tend to work a little bit slower and and more carefully because it's such a small , confined area that it's very easy. Teoh just almost go to, you know, to abroad um, and then lose a lot of information at the same time. In general, in areas like this, I'll be using some smaller brushes, but I still try and think, you know, a little you know I'm still thinking about playing changes in color changes and things like that. But what happens is because it's such a smaller area. Those changes are occurring a little bit quicker than some of the broad areas, like like the cheek. And so I just have to be really careful as I'm putting brush strokes down in these very small confined spaces. And so for me, at least, this area, as I was painting it it it was kind of a very much a back and forth thing that I was just constantly having to make adjustments because there's so many little things going on, um, with the facial hair and then the mouth and and then the sub forms in the mouth. And so just trying to be really careful when you get to the lower half of the face, because they're all there are all these things that are taking place, and the smaller sub forms can sometimes be a little bit tricky. But again, I'm still trying to think that the mouth itself is is this kind of simplified cylinder form overall, and then we're basically just putting the lips on top of that. But within that there's all these little plane changes that can kind of take place. And so I'm just trying to be mindful as I'm putting that information down. For now, though, that's kind of probably where I'd leave it until I get the rest of the the head filled in so that I can then reassess what I've put down. And so I kind of start putting, you know, some of the eyes. And like I said, this is one of the things that I generally like to save for last, and just because I find that for me, it's sort of like the, you know, sort of like dessert almost. And so I do like painting eyes a lot, even though there they are very difficult at times. But it's also an area that there's so much little detail taking place in a very confined space. So, um, I I find that by doing at last, I can focus on the rest of the head and work broadly and then gradually worked down to this very small area that is going to require a bit more care and more attention overall than things like, you know, like a cheek. You know, or a forehead, if you will, just like any other area. Even with the eyes, I start very broadly in the plane changes that I'm establishing. And so I'm thinking about the I as an orb and how this orb is hitting light and what kind of plane changes in temperature changes. Am I seeing as that form is rolling in and out of the light? And once I get you know, comfortable with, you know, the relative drawing of the eyes, then I can start thinking about smaller plane changes and perhaps adding a little bit of detail in the rest of the eye. But I still kind of going with the overall idea that I'm gonna start simple first and then gradually add other bits of information so that it looks you know, where we have to add some detail s so that it looks a little bit more pleasing. But I'm always gonna start simple first and then gradually add those extra pieces of information. The one thing I'd recommend while painting eyes, though, is to really squint down your eyes when you're looking at your reference or your model, and so that you can simplify them down into very, you know, just very basic shapes. And it's very easy to get caught up in all the little tiny things that are taking place in and I But if you can get the big effect, um, what and sort of paint? What you see, when you squint down, you're gonna have a much better result in the end, and you can always embellish on top of that effect. But by sticking with that larger shape first, you're gonna just get end up with a much better impression overall. 14. Portrait Sketch 4: So with everything more or less filled in at this point, I feel comfortable to sort of move on and to start to develop things a little bit farther. Ah, and looking for smaller plane changes, a zwelling start adding some extra details. Toe, hopefully get this thing looking a little bit better. As you can see, though, even if you were to run, let's a run out of time or stop. At this point you have a very basic impression. And if you were to get something like this and you know in a couple hours, then that would be a great start. And if you have a little bit of extra time, then you can go ahead and start to embellish things and, ah, you know, a little bit farther and start maybe putting in some extra details just to kind of add a little bit extra to the painting. I'm still not going to be using any brushes to sort of soften, you know, edges or anything like that, because I really don't want to, you know, model the pinking and in the sense that I would if it was a much, much longer painting eso I'm still gonna be putting down, you know, very distinct brushstrokes. But I'm going to be putting down smaller strokes so that the transitions from one section on one form to another hopefully look a little bit better as I continue. And so it's one of those things where you could you could realistically, you know, go, you know, and take it as far as you can given, you know, the time frame that you're working under. But I find that you know, there's a certain nice quality to just having big paint strokes, showing very distinct playing changes in form and just knowing that, you know, it was done in a limited amount of time and not, you know, an overly embellished portrait like a like a finished piece or anything. So all I'm really looking for is that areas that when I initially put down, you know, my paint and my brush strokes is that maybe I was a little too broad at first. But, um, and so what I'm doing now is just going back on top of those area and adding extra pieces of paint to create a little bit more of a gradation and a transition without having to take , you know, a brush to actually soften. You know those areas down or smooth them out in anyway. And so as I'm continuing along, I'm really just trying to think of just adding extra transitions and adding more paint to the surface that will interact with the brush strokes I've put down already. And by doing so, what I'm hoping to achieve is is just to create again smaller transitions that are gonna be a little bit more deliberate in showing how form is turning in a given area on and then also, you know, things like highlights and like that will come into play as well. But, um, we're basically looking for smaller transition and form by adding additional breast strokes . And, you know, by the end of it, hopefully we just have a little bit stronger of impression for the sketch. And what ends up essentially happening is I go over the entire painting, thinking that way and making those transitions, you know, or if there's areas that could have, you know, had been a little bit more descriptive than what I initially established, then I will essentially make corrections as well. But, uh, It's one of those things that is very difficult to sort of anticipate until, um, you know, the whole painting is filled in. And so you know, now that I have everything more or less established, I can see, you know, areas that well, you know, maybe I should have had more transitions, you know, in this particular spot. Or, you know, maybe the colors off Or, you know, just little things you're looking for like that because I know that I'm under sort of a timeframe here. So realistically, I can Onley get so much accomplished. But by having you know, everything filled in, it's much, much easier to gauge those things that need changes or need fixes versus when you're first initially putting down paint. You're kind of just establishing. You know, the overall picture from the beginning, - you know? And so I would say in this area, like the knows, there's a lot of subtlety in the transitions of the different planes of the nose. And so, uh, with with everything there, I can feel comfortable about putting in those extra little transition strokes toe, get a better idea about what is actually taking place in that area, you know, And the same thing would you know, would be for the eyes, Aziz. Well, and then especially like the mouth. Um, you know, those areas are going to require a little bit more refinement just so that I get a little bit more descriptive in how things are turning in space on and then, you know, kind of adding a little bit of extra detail so that it looks a little bit more finished. Um, you know of a portrait sketch, And so it's really up to you, depending on you know, how much time you're giving yourself and what you feel you want to embellish in because you could realistically stop at any time. And it really is more about just getting the practice of pushing paint down and, um, and just kind of getting some mileage. And But what I find that's fun about doing these portrait sketches is that allows you to work a little bit more freely because you're you know, if you know that, you're gonna have a huge gap of time to work on something you might, you know, may sort of tense up and almost work too slow. And if you know from the beginning that you're gonna have a very finite amount of time to work. Um, then it's kind of like, you know, it looks like a little bit of a test, and so, like, you can you can work a little bit freer because you know, you want establish, you know as much as you can in a short period of time. And, um and that's why these portrait sketches have a certain look to them, um, you know, versus something that was very finished over several weeks or months or, you know, or what have you? - Yeah , I'm just kind of lightning this area a little bit with a neutral mixture, and eyebrows generally aren't as dark as you think they are, a ceased towards the the corner of the brow that's closest to the I will see a little bit of an accent, and then as they trail off into the to the side of the you know, like the corner of the socket, they get a little bit lighter. And so this area here in the mouth again, like I was saying in the beginning, is with the facial hair. I had a tendency to start a little bit lighter, then what was actually there so that I could draw the mouth. And then now that it's established, I can put in some of those darker accents to hopefully get it a little bit closer to what's there in terms of value. It's one of those things sort of like in drawing that. You know, I don't put in dark values very quickly because it's sort of that point of no return thing and drawing, which is hard to a race. But paint you can kind of get away with it a little bit more. But I always err on the side of caution with super dark values. So it's one of those things where I will gradually build myself up to him. And it's easier for me at least, to put on those to hit those dark accents towards the end and feel safe about doing so. Um, and so this through this forehead area, I'm just adding a little bit of a brighter accent. Eyes. That particular piece by the hat is a fairly bright highlight in the forehead. You can, I will say, as faras accents and highlights is it's very easy to go overboard, so you do want to, um, into some capacity, limit them. And it's one of those things where you could also squint down your eyes and the highlights or accents that stick out even when you squint. Your eyes are probably the ones that you're gonna want to actually keep in the painting and then the ones that don't stick out so much. But you still see them. You can kind of play them down a little bit more because if you have too many highlights or accents happening, it just kind of its. There's sort of a disconnect, and so, like they actually need less the more you have. And so if you have just one really obvious highlighter accent, it makes it count a little bit more. And so just It's one of those things that even with a finished you know, portrait or anything like that, you just want to be conscious of, you know, not having too many excess highlights or accents. - So as I'm winding down here, you can you can more or less see kind of what we've got. Uh, given the amount of time that I spent working on this, and and so all I would really recommend for people to do is that, you know, be realistic in terms of what you can actually get done. Um, you know, in a few hours And so depending on where you are, right, and you're drawing or painting and, you know, like, even for me, like I've done these, you know, a decent amount. But, you know, doing these quick sketches isn't my forte as much as doing longer developed work. But I still enjoy doing these a lot because I find that, you know, even for me, I can get too caught up in detail sometimes. And, um, by giving myself a very specific time limit, it's fun so that I can just move a little bit more freely and not worry about things as margin. You know, by the end of it, hopefully you get you know, a decent little sketch and you know it sort of just like doing an exercise. And, you know, as you get better, you know, you'll get a little bit farther and farther each time, and, you know, some of the procedure in terms of how you get started will improve. But you know, and then you can very quickly, you know, over the course of you know, several weeks or several months, you can have a nice little collection of portrait's and, you know, and actually have quite a bit to show for it. So depending on waiter at in your skill level, I would recommend trying some of the exercise I showed earlier. First on then, you know, as you get comfortable with those, start doing full portrait's and see what you can come up with. And like I said from the beginning, it is just be realistic and then, you know, try and keep them a simple it's possible and then gradually start adding those details to the rest of the portrait. And, ah, you know, you can see here that, you know, for the time we have, we have, you know, a semi decent portrait and, uh, hopefully enjoyed it. Uh, and thank you for watching