Self Portrait demo for Robinson

[Miltz]

I was making some comments to Robinson, and felt that the best approach would be to post a piece which demonstrates them. Since I haven't been to this particular forum before, I thought I would post it for general comments as well. It has been posted in general Crits about 6 months ago, so for anyone who has seen it before I apologise for boring you.

This is oil on linen, 12"x16"

[Mario]

Nice work Miltz, I am trying to see the warm shadows and cool highlights that you talk about in your other posts. This concept confuses me , somewhat. Could you use this portrait to talk about it some? I see the cool highlight on the tip of the nose, the warm shadows, I do not see,yet. Unless, the background was cooled on one side and warmed on the other to make the sides of the face look the opposite of it. thanks

[sandge]

This is wonderful! I love the luscious brushwork. The strong side lighting gives a very powerful image.

The only thing that slightly bothers me is the hollow at the base of the neck - the bit between your collar bones (does that have a name?). Anyway it seems a bit low and the chest seems to come forward a bit too far, perhaps.

I also would like to know more about the warm/cool thing Mario has mentioned - and your working method for this generally. Do you draw first or plunge straight in with the paints?

Now that you have found us, I hope you will visit the Portraiture forum some more.

[Miltz]

Originally posted by Mario
...I am trying to see the warm shadows and cool highlights that you talk about in your other posts.

The basic idea is that light is cool, shadows warm in this case. The first element in making this dichotomy work is that there has to be a clear structural statement about what is in shadow and what is in light. This is a sometimes arbitrary decision when working from a studio photo, but as this was painted from life, I had good control over the lighting situation.

If you squint at this image, the big, simple shape of the shadow area is very clear. All areas within this shadow area are painted in a combination of burnt umber and cad orange, with a touch of ultramarine to deepen the value in the darkest area. Nothing in this area is higher in value than anything in the lit area, that is why it reads as such a simple shape when squinting. I am careful to keep the level of detail and the crispness in the shadows down, because shadows should be mysterious and not grab attention.

The lit area of the face is where all of the real action takes place. Within this area, you can see a continuation of the cool light emphasis. The planes of the face that most directly face the light source are quite cool relative to the warm tones in the cheek and at the tip of the nose.

2 things happen when a cool light hits an area of color. The value goes higher, and the color cools. To a degree you can substitute one of these for the other, allowing you to indicate light by only color while keeping the value close, as we see cool colors as lighter than warm colors at the same value. This is useful in keeping control over your overall value structure while still indicating light on form, and is best illustrated here in the area of the muscles in the cheek and jaw. There is a small value shift between the warmest areas in the cheek and the cool planes of the muscles, but the visual effect is clearly that of light hitting the forms. The other effect (using more value shift and less color shift) is most evident in the cheekbone, the side plane of the forehead and the highlights on the nose.

In addition to the color shifts inherant in the lighting structure, there are the local color issues to deal with. In addition, there is the use of a little background color to turn forms as they begin to receed such as at the edges of the neck. In this case it worked well for me as the lit planes are often receading planes, given the side position of my light source. I was able to use the background color as one of the cooling influences as accomplish the turn of the forms and the hue shift to indicate light at the same time.

All of these concerns are almost entirely restricted to the areas in the light.

Does this help?

[Miltz]

Originally posted by sandrafletcher
and your working method for this generally. Do you draw first or plunge straight in with the paints?

My working method from life is to dive right in with paint in monochrome. I first lay in the mass of the object I am describing in space, in this case a head. When I like the placement of the mass in space (it is a varigated sillouette at this point) I will cut in the lights in simple shapes by rubbing out the paint in the lit areas with a rag. This process is a lot like simply drawing with the side of a hunk of vine charcoal in reverse, and has two benefits. It allows me to see the clear light and shadow structure immediately, and it removes the darker paint from areas where I will be painting in the lights soon.

When I find myself slipping in concentration after this mass area "drawing" phase, I laid in the background color and value. I need to determin this fairly early because I wanted to relate the background value to the shadows, and because the color of the background will effect receding planes in the light.

Now I restated the shadows, deciding on value and color, then started painting in the lights. I started the lights with the richest color areas and tried to determine the highest values. This is an observationally intensive time, trying to get good color, value and form.

After getting the basic lights in I went back to refine the shadow areas, indicating deeper shadow and reflected lights, but keeping it within the desired value range.

After about 4-5 hours, I quit to let this dry. The next day I came back to refine things and punch up the highlights (because they always dry a little lower in value in the initial session). Total time on this piece was probably around 8 hours, very fast for me.

In regards to the collar bones (clavicals) and chest concerns you mentioned, I have no referance but it looked right to me at the time. The chest was a difficult problem, in that the planes of the chest were almost perpendicular to the light source and just barely lit at all. So I needed to make a somewhat subtle decision as to value. However, as this area is definitely background, in the sense that it is not a center of interest. So I had to keep it loose and unobtrusive, and couldn't afford to overwork it. I am pretty happy with it. I can't help my MASSIVE chest muscles of course...;);).

[Mario]

Thanks, it helps a lot. I'll read it a few more times over the next couple of days in order to get more of it. The hardest for me, at this time, is getting color into the shadows yet keeping them the same dark value as the raw umber imprimatura. It seems that any white I add to a pigment, to opaque it, will work against my keeping the value dark..I usually go to make it cool (the shadow) and it winds up as light as the light-struck side of the face...what am I doing wrong? that's what I'm asking myself...maybe, I should be warming the shadows...I hope I figure it out this week, I have portrait/figure class tommorrow nite.

[sandge]

Wow! Thank you so much for that really detailed information. That's great! :D

[Miltz]

Thanks, Sandra!

Mario, try lightening your shadows with a cadmium color, almost any will work. Cadmiums in general are very opaque and it dosent take much to give the shadows that warm glow. You can even get a cool shadowy color by using cads with a deep blue base like ultramarine or prussian blue (This usually can work only in a warm light situation like sunset or sunrise scenes). If you need to indicate a really bright reflected light try some yellow ochre to bring up the value.

White on the pallet is THE coolest possible color, and will immediately kill the shadowy nature of the shadow. (that's a bit redundent, huh?) Be vERY cautious and subtle with it, if you do need it. Remember that when lightening a shadow you are adding reflected light back into it, the color will corrospond to the local color of the object that is bouncing that light back into it. But the decision of how much of that reflected light you want to show, if any, is related to the concept of your painting, it is your choice. If it weakens the painting, don't do it! In many cases the best way to do that reflected light and color is to use a very rich but low value version of the color, the intensity of the color will make it look lighter even at the same value as the surrounding shadow color.

If you do find that your shadows have become as bright as the lights, glaze over the whole shadow area (BIG, SIMPLE SHAPE)with a single transparent color, like burnt umber. When you do, the structure of the painting and the power will immediately come back. What happens is that in observing the shadows, you eye adjusts, the longer you look, the more you see. You need to squint at your entire subject to get an accurate idea of the value you need to use. Paint has a very limited range of possible values, you must compress the values in what you see to fit within the range it is possible to create in paint.

A note on raw umber in your imprimatura...Raw umber has a very high oil content, and as such is dangerous to the long term permanence of the painting if used in a layer underneath less oily paints. It is also so opaque that it is dangerous to use as a final shadow color in any case. Shadows need to LOOK transparent, even if painted opaquely. I tend to use raw umber in areas that I want to look receded and opaque, but still lit, like the space around a portrait head.

For your class, you might want to try doing the shadows as a simple shape, ignoring reflected light and variations. Spend your limited time painting the lights. That is where your viewer is going to look anyway in a standard painting, if the viewer is noticing your shadows, you havent done it right. Shadow is background, light is the subject. Have fun, I wish my drawing group was still meeting! Sigh...

[ldallen]

Hi Mark,

Need to add my thanks here, too. Excellent lesson. For one thing I use a lot of umber, so I printed what you have said and will study it carefully.

[Verdaccio]

Very nice portrait! Great explanation - very clear and understandable. Thanks. :)

[jheinrich]

yes!

miltz you rock. the in-depth on this is a great read- thank you.

you should post progress photos sometime, I'd love to see your development.

j*

[Miltz]

Originally posted by jheinrich

you should post progress photos sometime, I'd love to see your development.

j*

I do wish I had a digital camera, it would make that (and posting other current work) so much easier! However, I do have a sequence from another post several weeks back. Here is the image
http://www.wetcanvas.com/Community/images/03-Jul-2001/Amyprogression.jpg

The post is HERE (http://www.wetcanvas.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=13817&perpage=15&pagenumber=1)

with all of my usual wordy explanations. Thanks for asking!

[ptantono]

I will print this page. I am learning soo much from you.
Thank you Miltz for the lesson. Wish you good luck with your MBA.

Patricia :angel:

[Mario]

Hi Miltz, On the figure sequence, what are the steps taken for the skin color? Did you use an imprimatura? Did you go in directly with an underpainting? Why? Why didn't you go in directly with the final opaque colors at the start?
The switch from warm to cool, that I see in the sequence, is really confusing to me. Any clarification of what is happening would be greatly appreciated. Many thanks

[bruin70]

miltz,,,,you're icon has the heeby geebies!

something about your portrait is driving me nuts. i looked at it for a while. it is that way the nose is lit. i think you need some edge control to differentiate twixt the CAST shadow on the nose by the brow. and the form shadow(which should be softer) of the nose as it turns to shadow.

also, there is an illusion that the nose is tiny and out of place because of the light. i think it's because you haven't shown the nose's fullness. i would add a bit of cool rim, reflected light( just a subtle tad)on the other side of the nose, in order to "move the nose" back in place. another solution would be to extend the light on the nose to bring the nose back to center.

the cool light you've placed in the background right justifies you doing all this.

i'm also looking at this on my laptop, so there may be more in this painting that i can't see. in which case,,,,,,,,,,,,forget what i just said.....{M}

ps....looking at it again. it may also be that you rendered tha small lit portion of the nose as if it were a WHOLE nose,,,,in other words,,,,,too complex with too many hilites. something you would only get on a FULL nose.

[JeanineJ]

Brilliant! Great painting with clear comments...:clap:

[Mario]

wow, Bruin70's comments just opened a whole new level of sensitive observation...many thanks!
I also want to thank Senior' Bruin for the excellent long paragraph tutorial on "Values" that was in the "color theory and mixing" forum..(I believe)..that was another several sentences that opened a new door in my mind.
http://www.wetcanvas.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=2469