Sketches

Saturday 24 March 2012

Self portrait in process

 For artclass we had to make a painting with the theme "mirrors". I didn't like the theme, I did not want to make a painting with a person and its reflection, because you are focussing too much on the differences between the two.
So I decided to treat the theme mirror literally: a painting of a mirror and myself in it.
As I had to work on two different locations, I had to use a photo. So I decided to show that I used a camera as well. Besides, I like the idea of showing the hands, makes the self-portrait composition more interesting.
To make life more difficult, I decided to use oilpaint, for the first time on a serious painting.

First picture is the underpainting, made in acrylic on a 70x90cm canvas frame, based on a charcoal drawing.




The second picture shows the mirrorframe, painted in oil.
I realised that the portrait part was not useful as underpainting, it was already too detailed. An underpainting should determine composition and shadow/light aspects.
 Here I adapted the face, in acryl. Note that I changed things like the length of the wrist.
I also started painting the background of the face, ochre on top of the yellow-green underpainting, to give the ochre a deeper effect.
In this phase I worked on the face and hands again. It was a first time in oil, and I found oilpaint works nicely, you can push the colours into each other. But I also realised that I was working too detailed, with all kind of different touches and tiny colour transitions. Even though it comes closer to the photo, it drains life out of the painting. I already added some broader strokes, but it was too late to change the panting around. Next time I have to keep more distance
Also note that I have not yet painted my glasses, they sit on top of my face, and for that reason should be painted later (after the paint dried somewhat)
To be continued....

5 comments:

LuTi said...

dit is echt knap gedaan. Je maakte je het extra moeilijk door de handen te schilderen maar het komt alleen ten goede . Ben benieuwd naar het einde .....
Mooi!

schilderijenfoto said...

Ha, de olieverf. Zeker voor portret wel fijn dat je de tinten later in elkaar over kan laten lopen. Mooi portret!

Rene Fijten said...

Bedankt Ludek en Geert-Jan. Ik ben zelf ook benieuwd naar het einde.

Rodney van den Beemd said...

Ik had deze nog niet gezien Rene (een weekje uit de running geweest), mooie progressie en erg sterk eindresultaat! Nu nog de bril en hij is af!

Rene Fijten said...

Alleen een bril? Was dat maar waar Rodney. Het is een zelfportret en dan blijf je erg kritisch. Misschien wel té.