Margaret Two-Hour Oil Portrait

[New Masters Academy]

This lesson is part of internationally renowned painter Joseph Todorovitch’s course, Portrait Painting for Beginners. In this session you will do a two-hour oil painting with our model Magaret. After a review lecture on color theory and mixing with Joseph, you will begin your portrait by using our provided reference images and following along with Joseph’s process. The focus of this portrait is solid color choices and how those colors relate to value design. This lesson included a downloadable PDF on color mixing.

[Betty Ng]

Joseph Todorovitch used white, yellow ochre, alizarin crimson and ultramarine blue to paint Margaret in this lesson and Amanda in the previous lesson.  What is the reason for not using the four colours (white, yellow ochre, cadmium red and ivory black) in the Zorn Palette?  What are the advantages of using Jospeh’s chosen palette over the Zorn Palette?

Many thanks,

Betty

[Daniel Daigle]

Hi Betty I checked with our education team and this is what they had to say

“without watching the video and just looking at the color list. It looks like he wanted to switch the warm and cool colors from the zorn palette. (cad red being warm and aliz. being cool, Ivory black being the cool blue and Ultr. Marine being the warm blue.”

From my very little experience with oil painting, if you mix warm and cool variants together, the mixed colors become muddy

I hope this answers your question 🙂

[Betty Ng]

Thank you Daniel for this.  Ultramarine is much more saturated than ivory black.  I think Jospeh chose alizarin crimson over cadmium red because of the cool light over the models in his demonstrations.  However, Zorn palette is well known for painting portraits indoors (in northern light which is cool).  Hence I am puzzled over why Jospeh thought that his choice of colours is better than the Zorn Palette.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 4 months ago by Betty Ng.

[Daniel Daigle]

Hi Betty, I believe this is to contrast the approach he took with the model, Amanda, where he used warmer colors. These two lessons allow students to learn how to adjust in different lighting scenarios, or, with a little extrapolation, how to shift it if you want the model to be in a different environment.
I don’t think its a question of being better than the warmer traditional pallet, but about developing a more complete tool kit.

As Glenn Vilppu often says: “No rules, only tools”

I hope this helps B)

• This reply was modified 3 years, 4 months ago by Daniel Daigle.

[Betty Ng]

Thank you Daniel for this.  Joseph also used alizarin crimson for the demonstration of painting Amanda.  Nevertheless, I take your points about having a complete tool set.  Also many thanks for passing on Glenn Vilppu’s wisdom.   I think it best for me to explore the different palettes and discover what works in different circumstances.  Thanks again for taking the trouble to address my puzzles. 🙂

 

[Alison Fox]

In the new site the downloadable PDF on colour mixing is not available and the transcript has not been updated for each lecture as you are using same transcript for all. Will the downloadable PDF on colour mixing be made available and will the transcripts also be made be available for each lecture. Thanks, Alison

[Daniel Daigle]

Hi Alison, for issues with the new site please either report a bug on the left hand toolbar or email “info@nma.art”

Thanks 🙂

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