Here is about an hour of work touching up both pieces based on the comments.
I worked on edges and lips for the female face.
The less than finished state of the male painting was the result of my procrastination over the weekend. I tightened up his eyes and nose and worked on his neck a little more. I also notied his shoulders were wrong in the process. It gives him now a more poised look.
I may noodle them a little more during the weekend depending how direct painting goes.
[female 02-male 02]
Female portrait in direct color.
Still in the ugly stage after about 1h30 but I get the feeling I have foundations to make it work. Then again, it could go south very easily, especially around her eyes and nose.
More details and structural adjustments tomorrow.
[female 2- first attempt]
Funny how sometimes the painting seems to simply flow out of the brush and sometimes it feels like pulling teeth. Tonight was a battle but I feel that I brought her back on the right track.
I had to take a few steps back, move her shape around a bit, erase some of the details I had started and redo the background.
At least the colors are there…. I will leave her as is for now and return to it over the weekend. Maybe by then the details that are wrong with her face structure will be more visible.
[female 02-second attempt]
I was going to take a break from working so late every night, but I couldn’t let her in the state she was in.
So.. a couple more hours into it, she is inching away toward something presentable.
At this point, I will only have to finish her hair over the weekend.
[female 2-11]
Thanks…. I am glad she is starting to come out of the ugly stage. This one gave me a hard time.
I guess she looks familiar because I ended up making similar choices than you Mathias (or more accurately, I recognized that you made better choices than I did and followed them ).
I darkened the background on her ‘light’ side and kept the background light on her ‘dark’ side to improve contrast.
I had to play with brightness and contrast to make colors a little more vivid – injecting blue from the background into the skin removed contrast on many features.
Her face did need more red to look less like a zombie. I am still way behind on the eyes though. I will try Marie’s suggestion when I finish it up.
First shot at the male portrait in direct color.
This one went as smoothly as the female portrait was hard. Maybe it was the benefit of having a hard time with the first portrait. Or maybe I was in better mood and less tired this time around.
I used large brushes as much as possible to keep it loose, strong colors when I thought about them and some brightness / contrast adjustments to fight the dull layer from too much blending of the colors.
About two hours of work still in Painter.
For fun and comparison, I threw in the same portrait I did for last year’s workshop. This was my very first attempt at direct color painting.
[male 02-01]
More work on the male portrait after a couple of days of break (must be something in the air, I was sick as well for the past couple of days).
I tried to inject more red into his dark side.
His upper arm is still giving me trouble. That must be because I rely too much on the reference and not enough on knowledge of anatomy (which I lack at the moment ).
[male 2-07]
inal copies for now.
I may revisit them later tonight or tomorrow morning if I feel better. Tomorrow is a day off work, I will have more time to practice during the day.
Edit: Minor updates. Mostly adding more color and contrast to the make portrait and adjusting the eye and eyebrow on the female portrait.
[male 09]