Portrait 54/100

For this painting, I'm still using a 3-primaries plus white plus phthalo green palette. I added some abstract shapes and color to jazz up the composition a bit. Many of these colors would not have happened without that phthalo green addition, and I think I can get used to that lovely add on.  

 

The whole Nutella thing appeals to the younger girl inside me. I used to eat it on toast for breakfast, and also sometimes straight from the spoon. For the lovely reference photo, thank you to a contributor on the Museum app. I did a Google translation of her name and it comes to Anastasia Sandyk. 

So thank you Anastasia! This is 8x10" oil paint on mdf panel.

Here are a few process photos:

Portrait 53/100

 

I recently held a portrait commission giveaway, and Grace H was one of two winners. She was a delight to paint, so thank you to Grace for the lovely reference photo!

Here are some process shots:

This is 6x8” oil paint on mdf panel.

Portrait 52/100

 

This is a paint over, again. So say goodbye to the wolf underpainting, which provided a lovely painting surface for this portrait. And this one came together relatively easily. Perhaps I am getting the hang of making portraits? I'm now looking over my shoulder, sure that the next one will bite me in the butt!

Thank you to Nazanin Nor on the Museum app for the lovely reference photo. Here are some process shots:

Portrait 51/100

 

This is another paintover on top of a previous unloved painting. The main thing I changed here relative to the reference photo was to make the background colorful and abstract. I mocked it up in procreate first to see how the colors were working. To bring some of that background color into the figure, I added a turquoise layer on top and then brought the opacity down to just a few percent. So the colors in her skin got slightly bluer. All with the intention of integrating figure and background.

Thank you to Zahra Babaei on the Museum app for the lovely reference photo. This is 6x8" oil paint on mdf panel.

Here are some process images:

Portrait 50/100

 

50/100! Whoohoo! I was curious when I started this project how my painting would change after doing so many portraits, and the main thing I can say is that I'm having more fun with them. I love the process of adding specific patches of color to develop the form--it's almost meditative. Almost. And I'm feeling much freer with the backgrounds. My main complaint with many of the portraits I have done in the past is that the figure doesn't feel integrated into the background, and the result is that, to me, they don't feel like complete paintings. So the fun I'm having with backgrounds also makes the paintings feel more complete to me. That's where my head is right now, anyway. I'm curious where it will be when I get to 100/100.

The reference photo has a lovely young woman in it, but she is in a sea of beigey mustard color, and I wanted to make the sea more sea-like (no offense to beigey mustard!). But how would that affect the color of her face? If she were really in an atmosphere of blue, wouldn't that reflect into her face in places? So I put a little bit of blue here and there--in her hair, and in the shadow below her cheekbone, and in the shadow below her chin. I'm hoping these touches integrate the figure and background.

For my colors today, I used what was already on my palette from a previous painting: 3 primaries, plus white, plus phthalo green. Wow, I love phthalo green, and that pigment was responsible for some of the yummy colors of the background.

Thank you to Ash K on the Museum app for the lovely reference photo. Here are some in-between shots:

Portrait 49/100

 

Getting near the halfway mark! I am proud of my stick-to-it-iveness on this project. I might need to pick up my pace to get 100 done in 1 year, but I'm happy to have painted so many portraits already. 

I think doing a lot of painting really helps improve skills, but I also recently noticed that my enjoyment of painting portraits has also increased. What a gift! I remember this happened to me once before when I started practicing making portrait sketches on my iPad. I initially did that practice as a kind of medicine, because I didn't enjoy it and I wasn't any good at it, but I thought that it would be the best way to learn to learn to see and draw. So I started by making 20 a day (a bit extreme), but then dropped it down to 10, then 5, then 2. These were all very quick sketches, just focusing on line and proportion, not shading or finishing. I did 10 a day for a long time, keeping track of the number until I got to around 5,000. Somewhere on that journey, I found a lot of relaxation and pleasure in making those sketches. Anyway, the whole point of this story is to say that during this portrait painting project, I'm starting to get that same shift in my own pleasure in the painting process. So yay for that!

Here are some progress shots from painting 49:

Thank you to Alison Murnaghan on the Museum app for the inspiring reference photo. 
Oil paint on 6x8” mdf panels.

Portraits 47 & 48/100

 

I worked on these two portraits at the same time, alternating focus between the two so that they would develop at the same rate. They were side by side on the same easel. This kind of exercise in the past has forced me to be a little less precious about each, and it worked a tiny bit this time, too. Process shots compiled below.

Thank you to Karen R and Varvara Klimova on the Museum app for the inspiring reference photos. 

Oil paint on 6x8” mdf panels.