Graduation Gift
 

Oil on ABS panel, 24" x 30"

Wow, Linda, this is beautiful. Great pose. You also successfully rendered a potentially distracting background (with no tangent lines!). Glad you posted the close-up, too; the sparkle in her eyes is captured wonderfully.

Sincerely,

Linda, what a bold composition! What I am learning from you by looking at this is how a bold stripe pattern can be effectively kept in the background through the use of broken color. Well done! I am curious about your use of an ABS panel. How thick is it and how do you laminate it to a substrate support (plywood)? I have never tried working on ABS yet. Can you share more about what you like in working on ABS panels?

Garth

Oh Linda, she is beautiful! Your title has me curious. Did you do this as a gift? May I get on your Christmas list? :D

Oh, Linda, this is gorgeous - she is gorgeous. I am headed over to see this in person. What a stunning composition, color harmony, and what a painting.

Linda
This is masterful! One that deserves to be studied . Could you also post a closeup of the hands?

Thank you all for your kind and encouraging comments.

Garth, there's a long discussion about ABS panels at this post, and if you search there are many more (both the pros and cons of ABS) on the Forum: http://forum.portraitartist.com/show...&highlight=ABS . If you want to give it a try and if I get outside to sand some more of these and if you take me out for coffee when I get to Philly in a few weeks... I'll bring you one.

I was surprised to see that I have posted at least four examples of my ABS paintings on the Forum over the past year or so. Actually, I do paint on other types of panels. Since I have a lifetime supply of ABS I tend to noodle around on it a lot.

Bill Whitaker has just posted a beautiful example of what can be done with ABS and how to sand it over on this link:
http://forum.portraitartist.com/showthread.php?t=4669

I think ABS is especially wonderful in small paintings where you can really obsess over the surface quality of the painting.

My painting was selectively sanded: sanded in the flesh sections and the background was purposely kept textured.
By the way, I'm using much less Maroger than I used to on these ABS panels. I was getting too much glare in the end product.

Linda--

Told ya!

Best--TE

Beautiful painting
 

Linda,

This is a beautiful painting, your colors are magnificent!

Joan

Spectacular, Linda! Your best yet. I particularly like the warm shadows and the unusual effect of the stripes in the background. Lots of those verticals we talked about!

Linda,

Beautiful work. This is one of my favorite paintings that I have seen posted on this forum. Natural, realistic flesh tones and nice brush-work.

Linda,
My, my, you have been busy doing really exceptional work lately Linda. This is gorgeous. Your brushwork remains fresh and alive, and yet you have kept everything well within it's place. I see you have paid extra attention to form turning edgework. Many Kudos my friend, I love it! I whish I was there to see it for real.

Wow!
 

That

Linda,

This is painted beautifully. I particularly like her direct, confident gaze. She will be a real attention-getter, wherever the painting is hung.

Linda,

This is a beautiful portrait. The background works perfectly and I like the expressive brush work.

No doubt your family holds you up as a goddess and constantly asks if they can refill your beverage glass.

Mike, I wish there were an icon on the right of this reply box for "Head on Keyboard, Weeping With Laughter".

I feel that I'm getting undue credit here for the beauty of my sitter. I've decided that I'm only going to paint gorgeous young girls from now on.

Claudemir, this painting started out in a vertical format and was supposed to be painted solely from life, two hour sessions every day. But by the end of the second week I had turned it horizontally (all those verticals seemed too much for a vertical format) and took photos of the sitter to finish the painting. (Sigh!) I had considered putting some flowers or a plant behind the chair but I thought it might add too much sentimentality to what I wanted to be a direct and intense portrait.

Linda,

I always love looking at your work and am not sure I've ever told you so! This is lovely, and the colors are absolutely beautiful - rendering of her face is soft and just a beautiful painting!!

Thanks for posting it!

Denise

Another beautiful piece, Linda. I would love to see it in person, I envy Chris (maybe someday).

Jean

Maybe someday we'll all get to see it in person. Linda you should enter it into the Portrait Society of America show. When it wins we can all go see it!

This is beautiful Linda! As my daughter would say: "You rock!"

I still have yet to try my ABS - it's sitting there sanded, but still in huge sheets. I just ordered a tiny bit of Maroger for the first time the other day. I'd like to hear actual amounts used on canvas. For example - do you put a drop in each pile of paint? Or only use it for certain effects? Then after you answer those questions - what about on ABS?

Drat!
 

Now I am going to have to work harder and it's Summer and the veranda and a chilled Chardonnay are beckoning!

You have managed to successfully pull off a tricky composition. The weight of the stripes on the left balance the figure beautifully. Her skin tones are luscious!

Just lovely Linda!

Kim, be sure you're wearing a mask if you're sanding, especially on those big sheets of ABS. Who is going to cut them for you?

It's taken me over a year of trial and error (lots of error) to figure out how to work on ABS. All of my useful knowledge comes from Bill Whitaker who surely deserves an award for patience with student pests.

Lately I've been saving my Maroger for the top couple of paint layers and using it as a dip for my small brush to blend soft turning edges. The bottom layers are as soft as I can make them and I blend them flat and loose with a fan brush. I build up the lights with opaque paint and scrub the dark shadows into the ABS ground. I'm not thinning the paint at all (other than the initial drawing with raw umber) and there is a ton of paint on this panel.

Sanding (by hand!) between paint coats seems to act as an exfoliant for future layers and somehow increases luminosity. When you hit these ABS paintings with a halogen spotlight they explode off the wall. I think it has to do with the hardness and the brilliance of the white ground. My next few paintings are going to be on gessoed boards and I'm wondering if I can get them to behave the same way as ABS does.

Sharon, Thanks so much, and your post is reminding me to tell you that my efforts to draw on ABS were a big flop. No matter how much I spray or varnish I can still rub off some of the charcoal or Nupastel, so I will still need to frame them under glass. I'm thinking now, though, that I may try to sand the drawings by hand before I revarnish and see what happens.

Jeez Linda!

I must say you look like a tres chic lady in your self portrait and in your photo. However after you describe your working methods; sanding, sanding and varnishing and sanding, you MUST look a lot like me after a day of spraying and coating a 35lb pastel panel.

Let us say, we must both look like Pigpen in Charlie Brown, and as happy as two pigs in ****!

Thank you for all that useful information Linda!

I sanded the one panel with an electric sander the spouse brought home and it had a little bag attached that caught all the dust - it worked really well. He will cut them for me...you know...when he has time.

The one thing that caught me off-guard is that you use the Maroger only in parts. I had this impression it changed the suface - made it shinier and if only used in parts it would be different textures. This is good to know. I hadn't opened mine yet since I am in the middle of a painting, but now I might. The kind I ordered is pre-mixed and a thick gel. (from studioproducts, I believe that is what you & Bill recommended).

If I can get Jamie to cut the panels I am going to do the next one on ABS. I have a beautiful little model posing for me at the local wine vineyard tomorrow. Grape vines, an old-world-looking (hopefully) outfit, vines and vines and a basket of grapes. I am excited!

Thank you again - you are always very generous with your knowledge and it is appreciated!

Linda


This portrait is so excellent that I just have to stop lurking to say so.
I cannot stare at it enough.

Have you previously shared what your palette was?
I'd love to know, as I've been a pastel painter for so long, I'm having trouble translating my color knowledge over to oils. I've always just grabbed my favorite pastels.... no idea of what colors they were.


Cheryl

Hi Linda

Please add me to the list of admirers! This painting is fabulous - so beautifullly painted , and so beautifully composed. I hope you get much work from it. Thanks for sharing it. Wow just a great job....

Linda

Hi Cheryl,

Welcome to the Forum! I'm very flattered that you posted such kind words about my painting. I don't think of myself as a colorist and so I'm not sure you should follow my advice with your first foray into oils. I think my paintings all look pretty much the same no matter what colors I use, so there is some emotional/subconcious editing process that is taking place somewhere along the line. I don't try to match photos, for example; I'm always asking myself, does this color make the subject look alive? The second question I ask is, will this color make the viewer want to touch the painting? I'm always trying to get people to want to touch my paintings and if color will help in that process, I'll use it.

Isn't this the most non-intellectual approach to color that you've ever encountered?

So here's the palette for this painting - for me, it's pretty subdued:

Flake White
Yellow Ochre
Naples Yellow Deep (Old Holland)
Transparent Earth Red (Gamblin)
Irgazine Ruby (Ozog, no longer made by this company but now being made by Studio Products; see this post: http://forum.portraitartist.com/showthread.php?t=4680 )
Cerulean Blue Chromium (I love this for indoor flesh)
Ultramarine Blue
Permanent Sap Green
Raw Umber
Asphalutm (Gamblin)
Portland Grey Mediun (Gamblin)
Ivory Black

Linda,

Thank you so much for posting such kind words, and how come we haven't seen your work on the Forum lately?

I'll be posting some paintings within the next month and hopefully will have more time to contribute to the board this fall. This summer has been busy and unfortunately, filled with stuff other than painting. I did complete 5 paintings, but haven't had the time to get them photographed. Thanks for asking !

Thanks Linda!


I'll try one with those colors and see how it works out.
It won't be my first oil. I just haven't yet done any that are equal to my pastels (in my opinion.)

But I get requests for oils frequently, so I do need to improve with this medium.

I'm learning a lot from this forum and glad I finally decided to join it.

:)


Cheryl

Linda, did I already say how fantastic this is? If I did, I'll just repeat myself.

Lucky Chris, getting to view this in person.

:thumbsup: awesome!

Linda, I forgot to ask - are you shooting your own work? Or, do you send it out for 4 x 5's? It always looks good, mine is an injustice to myself.

Where is the head bang smilie?

Linda, been asleep lately and never noticed this one posted, but had seen it on your site. The look on her face and texture is beautiful. This is one definitely one of my top ten favorites posted here. (my drawings take up the top nine) :D Just kidding ofcourse.

Here is my high-tech, glamorous solution to the problem of photographing paintings with my digital camera: on a table easel in the bathtub under a skylight. Certain times of the day are better than others, but I think I usually get color results remarkably close to the painting.

I don't actually paint in the bathroom. I hope I'm not confusing people with this photo!

Is the bathtub empty or full?

You don't paint IN the bathtub? What better way to get your feet wet when starting a new painting?

See pure genius!

How about the towel bar - does it cast a shadow? JUST KIDDING ;)

Hi Linda,
I must say, I did think it a little strange that day I saw you and Chris run off to the bathroom together with camera in hand. But then once I saw your setup, it all made sense. :sunnysmil
Your paintings just keep getting better and better. This certainly isn't a typical portrait background, but helps make this lovely portrait even more interesting and unique.

This is the painting which will receive a Merit Award at the PSOA in May. I've since retitled it to "Claire at Eighteen". Thanks again to all you nice artists who said kind things about it, your encouragement means a lot to me.

And by the way I'm finally remembering to post a closeup of the hands:

CONGRATS!

This painting and your work definitely deserve an award!

YEAH!

Linda