Oil Painting " The selfie icon"~ michellechoongkhoo

Ready for signoff, framing and hanging up in our hall of love !

How did we get here? 

stage 1 : using water mixable oils to map out the tonal values :

                      

     

stage 2: slowly adding  thin layers of oils using linseed medium

  

More art lessons or continue with self learning~ michellechoongkhoo

Recently, my arty farty MIA classmate, invited me to join into a class on portraiture.
I was so tempted but alas timing clashes.
And truthfully the prospect of weekdays morning to rush into KL's CBD district does sound sane to retired slack souls !

So I guess I shall resort back to plodding along, trial and error and referencing from other artists .
Thus it was that Jon's eye catching selfie shot caught my eye...
As they say, good art starts with fab good stills.
Aha,  this dramatic photo in my opinion fits the bill!

Oil painting is definitely not my first love. 

As I plodded along I started to remember why I always defer starting on oils and why there's all those incomplete pieces sitting in the archive box! 

But as with any labor of love, the special meaning of the piece kept me focused and determined to complete this one! 

It is going to be a long process.... 

Stay tuned 

oil portraiture of sons, part one~Jon

not quite there yet but at least I think I'm getting the hang of the blending monochromatic underpainting.

As I compare the photo reference, I know that I totally misjudged the angle of Jon's tilt and I dont know how to paint the teeth yet~ but Im gonna proceed to complete Julian's and Justin's head shots and the background and then come back to perform the dentistry for Jon….hahahah

Life is great, Life is a gift

and I give thanks for life's gift of the joy that my sons bring~

Oil lesson 3: Mona Liza~ monochromatic opaque underpainting

Last Saturday I felt like I was getting to know Mona Liza really upclose and personal~

I scrutinized every inch of her face until even now I can even visualize her in my mind….and due to the close scutiny, to both Ms Shia and my surprise we both discovered that she actually was wearing a gauze veil on her head…mmmm Interesting indeed!

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Technique : Painting Mona Liza using monochromatic opaque underpainting on white ground

The lesson was to concentrate on the form and tonal value of the face using one color i.e vandyke brown and mixing with white to get the mid range tones.

Step 1 : mix the vandyke brown with white to get some half tones and apply these to the areas where there are shadows following the contours of the face, paying

careful attention to the eye sockets, cheeks, nose , lips and brow areas.

Step 2 : fill out the left overs with pure white, NO blending….just block in the colors.

To make sure that I followed this rigidly, Ms Shia hovered over me like a mother hen :)

Well, first draft of my Mona looked like she was of Asian origin, very voluptuous and looking very post natal ! Hahaha

OMG I cannot imagine how we were gonna achieve any similiarity to Mona Liza's face with all the blotchy spots all over!!

Step 3: Ms Shia told me to watch the magic as she used a medium fan brush and lightly fan Mona Liza's face ~ incredibly the colors blended so naturally, wow it was indeed magical!

Step 4 : Ms Shia then handed the fan brush and told me to finish the job…and horrors I actually made Mona Liza's face full of scratches !

Ms Shia goes "AIYA, cannot simply chincai bongcai sapu her face any direction you like !!"

Hahaha, the key was to imagine stroking Mona's face as if I was applying powder or blusher….

Oh ok, hahaha.

Believe you me, that made a heck of a big difference indeed.

Also with the right stroke of the fan brush, apparently we could make Mona Liza appear fatter or leaner just be slightly altering how the cheek bones flow or by adjusting the strokes above her bosom….ooooh, interesting!

I cant wait to see how we will glaze and restore Mona to full color spectrum after I finish off painting all the tonal values on her clothes and the background and let the paints dry .

Stay tuned for future lessons update to see how my Mona turns out in early August because before we can glaze, all the layers of underpaint have to be thoroughly dried!

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Since I still had so much more paint left over, I decided to just for the heck of it also practise on a more contemporary beauty….a Dior model in Her World magazine ;P