Tracey 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 Vanna (following along as Joseph paints another model, Tracey). With more painting experience under your belt, you will begin to focus on getting further in the allotting two hours, including choosing an area of the painting for your first read. This focal point, will help you control your viewer’s experience and as your proceed through this course you will build greater and greater confidence.

[linda groene]

I love doing the 2 hour studies, feel they have really helped me get more efficient.  But IF I wanted to take one to a highly finished state, what would you recommend?  Just continue doing more of the same techniques with more and more attention to gradations and edges?

[Daniel Daigle]

Coming from a drawing and sculpting perspective, we usually block out time for each stage. For example, you may practice doing 5 – 30 second gestures and then maybe 5 minutes to work out the forms, then anatomy, etc when you increase the total time per drawing, we typically don’t spend more time on any individual stage. The total amount of time decides what level of finish we achieve rather than how much we rush through it.  We still take 30 seconds or so to lay in the gesture. The extra time goes to working in the progressively smaller details
The point is that you work from large to small. So for a sculpture, one approach would be massing out the form, positioning the form with gesture. block in the smaller-major forms, establish and or refining landmarks, convert forms into anatomical forms, refine anatomical form considering tensions, flexion, stretch, weight etc. then consider compression and wrinkles, then fingernails level structures, and then keep working down until you get pores.
I am not a painter, but i would guess you would work similarly.  you may start with a drawing, that follows the standard rules, then an under painting, then a block in with paint, keep refining your gradients until you eventually get to hair line glazes if you wish.
Any way, thats my outsiders guess 🙂 I hope its useful

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