Day by Day Oil Portrait
*UPDATED IMAGE* ‘MaJo’. Oil portrait on linen, life size.
Here is a life size portrait that I recently completed (aside from some possible tweaks). I still need to varnish and photograph it properly, but this image isn’t too bad to give you an idea of the finished painting. It was completed over 13 sessions of 2 hours each, and I took a quick iPhone snap at the end of each one to show a step-by-step progression of how the work evolved.
Some days it may not look like very much changed, but I probably tried things, changed my mind, or made small shape changes that subtly moved things forwards. I always find it interesting (and helpful) to see how I got to the end. MaJo is a lovely model and all that hair was great fun.
Hi Helen
I just wanted to say I came across this portrait today – it’s absolutely beautiful. Love the harmony in the palette the expression you’ve captured it’s gorgeous.
I’ve enjoyed looking through your work you’re a very talented painter.
Could you let me know the colours you’ve used I’ve just started painting and really struggling with this.
Many thanks
Sara
Dear Sara, thank you for looking at my work and your lovely comments. This would have been painted with a limited palette of:
Raw or burnt umber to lay-in the initial stages. Then building up colour with ivory black, earth red, yellow ochre and white. Sometimes I might put some alizarin crimson in redder areas – corner of eye, around nose, but not always – and always subtly.
Hope that helps. It’s a good palette that will do a lot when you get going. Keeping things simple is one less thing to worry about. Currently I’m experimenting with some other colours, just to learn and have fun. Whatever combinations I use though, there will be a blue, red, yellow and white, usually an umber to neutralise saturation if things get a bit much, but I try not to have too many colours on my palette. Limited palettes are good for giving a sense of unity and harmony across the whole painting. H
Thanks for taking time to respond Helen, I really appreciate it. I love the idea of limiting the options as I found colour mixing so difficult. I was relieved to see you could achieve this result with so few colours. I’ll certainly be giving this a try!
I’ll keep following your work I really love the loose style.
Best wishes
Sara