Portrait in oil

[Diane Cameron]

Hi, I’d love a critique of this portrait I did in oil with a Zorn palette, other than a bit of ultramarine blue to make the background outside the window cooler (a scene with snow and trees). It’s around 16×20” on canvas.

[Joshua Jacobo]

Diane,

I’ve critiqued your painting in this video: https://www.nma.art/forums/topic/free-student-video-critiques-by-joshua-jacobo/

[Diane Cameron]

This was so helpful! I’ve been following the lessons on NMA for a few years now and all I was missing was feedback from an experienced artist. It really gave me a boost. Thanks so much, Joshua.

[Joshua Jacobo]

I’m glad to hear it. Keep painting and please keep sharing with us. 🙂

[Josseline Jeria]

Hi Diane

I watched Joshua’s critique of your piece. I was captivated by the expression and gesture of the gentleman. I get a subtle storytelling element out of the piece too,  there’s more to it than a pure portrait piece, which is lovely. The subtle nature is inviting. Did you create an underpainting or underdrawing? and did you use any mediums?

[Diane Cameron]

Hi Josseline, so nice of you to reach out! My goal when I do art is to express what I feel when I look at a subject so I really appreciate your feedback that you felt what I was trying to convey.  I do a lot of live model drawing but the community centres are closed so my husband has been posing for me.   I did a sketch with paint diluted with thinner before I started painting and then I used paint straight out of the tube, no medium.  I find that medium makes it hard to cover the canvas because the paint gets too thin, maybe because I don’t tend to use a lot of paint to begin with.

[Josseline Jeria]

You’re welcome Diane 🙂

It is evident you work from life. I think the subtleties in mood and gesture can be difficult to capture from photographs, unless you imply them yourself, but I think trying to stay truer to the subject is preferred 🙂

Thanks for sharing that. Recent paintings I’ve made I used a coloured pencil to do the sketch, but didn’t lay a neutral mid tone before laying down the initial colours, which made getting the colours right real difficult. Back to laying a neutral ground. I only use linseed oil as a medium when I need the paint to spread a bit more, otherwise I use paint alone. If I do an underdrawing and tonal sketch I use mineral spirits. What kind of oil paints do you use? perhaps the paints you use have a higher oil content so you may need less medium? I disperse some linseed in a tiny little jar, and just barely dip my brush into it and then mix it with the paint before applying onto the canvas. If I need more, I dip a bit more.

Are you currently working on another painting? I hope you are keeping safe.

[Diane Cameron]

Hi Josseline, I responded the other day but I just realized it didn’t work so here’s my response again. I’m using a set of Permalba oil paint made by Weber and you’re right, some of them seem to have too much oil although others are quite stiff. It’s supposed to be professional quality but I’ll buy another brand next time.  For now I’m using linseed oil to thin out the ones that are stiff.  Have you ever tried using the Zorn palette? Cad. red medium, yellow ochre, black and white.  That’s what I’m using until I feel more at ease painting portraits.  It gives you one less thing to think about and really makes beautiful skin tones.  I’ve worked on the painting Joshua critiqued and still need to do some adjusting to the background.  I started a self-portrait yesterday so that’s what I’m working on now.  I didn’t see what you submitted on the website but I’ll check again.  I saw that you were having trouble posting. Best, Diane

[Josseline Jeria]

Hi Diane,

Don’t let the inconsistency of the paints throw you off in professional quality paints. This is often because they only use the pigment and carrier oil, usualy linseed, so this allows for each pigment’s unique qualities show through. For example, I have two Michal Hardings paints – Transparant Red Oxide and French Yello Ochre. The Transparent is a bit more fluid than butter, but overall very smooth, whilst the Ochre is quiet gritty.
Ah great. It’s ohk to use OMS if you are doing an underdrawing, but then in the first painting, a very small quantity of OMS is ohk. The next layers should be minimal linseed and further layers you can add more, even transition to a stand oil. I don’t have much experience with stand though. Liquin is another popular medium, but for me I want to stick to as minimal mediums as possible and keep it simple – painting is hard enough as it is!

I’ve not tried the Zorn palette before, though I think it would be good for me too. I developed my palette following Bill Perkin’s one that he shared in his Colour Bootcamp course. It is a fully saturated one using white and black, the most saturated warm and cool primaries, and a phthalo green. It is difficult to work with, but I like his philosophy that this way you have full saturation range to work with. Having said that the simplicity of the zorn palette would be good for practicing colour relativity and as you said less to think about.

He gave wonderful and very practical useful feedback. I’m sure it will help improve you painting even more. Self-portrait will be great practice! A task every artis must undertake I think 🙂

It is titled Still Life and Landscape Oil paintings. There are two now, the one that’s further down the forum has all four that I shared 🙂

Cheers

 

 

 

[Diane Cameron]

Hi Josseline, I was trying to find your painting but I’m getting lost in the threads.  I just wanted to say that I really liked your painting that Charles critiqued.  You have a beautiful soft palette and nice brushwork in that piece.  I agreed that turning that rutabaga (if that’s what it was) around to point toward the centre would help. I’ll try to find the other ones you posted.

I saw your post about a drawing schedule.  I’ve been drawing almost every day for around 2 years and it’s amazing how your drawing can improve if you practice a lot. Even if you don’t have a lot of time you can do a quick sketch of your hand or something on your desk, and that keeps your eye practiced.  I sometimes feel scattered because there’s so much I want to do too.  I’m trying to think of it as “so much wants to come out” to be more positive.  If I were you I’d decide what appeals to you most and try to draw that most of the time, whether it’s portraits, still life, landscape, etc.  Or if you think you need to work on volume, for example, you could choose subjects that help with that.  Personally, I find I draw a lot of portraits since I’m interested in faces and what they say about a person so that tends to be what I do most, but not exclusively.  Be creative.  As long as you’re drawing regularly I wouldn’t be too concerned about finding the right subject.  That will come with time.

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