3 Hour Portraits

So, I managed to get not one, but TWO portraits done this week! With the big painting out of the way, I had yesterday and today free to pursue additional paintings. Since I only got Louisa's back, I really wanted to paint a portrait of her.

It turned out that Louisa was only going to be posing on Tuesday...so I kicked things in gear and finished a portrait of her in 3 hours! I'm pretty happy with how it came out. She said that I caught her on a tired day, but she didn't seem too tired to me!

And today, I got one of Evangeline. I think it looks a lot better up close; please click on it to see more detail! I had trouble with this one, partially because I ran out of steam, and partially because the lighting was really tricky. Her entire right half was a mystery to me because her head was illuminated from the side/back and there wasn't much light on that half of her face. I tried to catch some of the highlights on her eyelashes, but that might've been too much to attempt with the brushes I had.

Another issue I had was with the canvas. I bought a pre-made, triple-primed canvas from Utrecht. The surface was smoother than a baby's bottom, which is often a good thing, but I had major issues getting the paint to stick. The previous portrait was done on a canvas I stretched and primed myself. With a surface that is a bit rougher, it took the paint a lot easier; paint on the Utrecht canvas didn't want to stay in one spot and smudged very easily. Definitely prefer stretching and priming my own canvas for small, fast paintings.

Super proud of these, mostly because I accomplished them in a short time. Granted, they are on small canvases- E is 11x14 and L is...something bigger. 14x16 maybe? Something unusual.

Maybe I'll post some of my photography work next.

Waiting for the semester to end,
-J