Pastel of Korinne
 

Here's a new pastel I started a few days ago. Once again, they are driving me insane. I've walked away from this piece several times, popped in a Daniel Greene tape and convinced myself, "hey this stuff is easy", then returned to my suffering. I don't know how much time I've spent on it because I've stepped away so many times.

I'm going to leave the face like this until I finish the background to then judge what colors to finish off the face. I believe I will be adding more ochres as the background will be in shades of ochre with purple and blue accents. she has a great blue light shining in her hair and a purple sweater that I'm waiting to jump into.

This is my first time working off a monitor. I bought a refurbished 21" CRT monitor for under $200 including shipping and it works great. I just had to surround the screen to block out the lighting. It takes getting used to, but the quality is much better than referring to a print. I'll post an update in about a week. Any comments or critiques welcome.

Thanks for looking.

Keep at it Jimmie. You may be struggling, but I think it is only because this is a new medium for you and you are still trying to figure out how they handle, but you obviously know how to find your way. This is coming along beautifully!

What a TREAT! It's going to be so great to follow your progress in the months and years to come (and inspiring, educational, edifying, humbling). The main thing is that you have a very good eye - for values, color, edges... and you have such an appealing touch with the materials....everything else (technical stuff) will sort itself out.

Thank you SO MUCH for posting your unfinished work.

David

Jimmie this doesn't read like you are suffering your way through it.

I'm looking forward to the results of your pain though. I like this one as it is, something about energy. ;)

Jean

Jimmie, you are off to a luscious beginning, great surface quality, very painterly!

PS ( my "Enter key" finger is way too fast)

Why do you want to change the coor of the background you already have? You have already made excellent color and temperature decisions based on the cooler gray background - to change to a warm temperature background now will cause you to have to do a lot of repainting in the skin tones.

You make it look easy....
 

....the mark of a true professional. I will be looking forward to seeing the finished piece.

Thanks all.

Before my following answers sound dumb and naive, that's because they probably are. The gray that's there now is the Belgium Mist from Wallis, and I never gave thought to having a gray background for this piece. Now I've never been good at color, but I thought the ochre background would work well with the purple sweater.

The verticle column touching her face will be darker than the other planes and have reflected cool colors that will be similar to the reflected colors on the back of her hair.

I wish I had my sketch to post to demonstrate what I planned. It looked good to me, but like I said before, I've always been weak with color. I have it at work, so I'll try posting it tomorrow night or Tuesday morning. Thanks for the advice.

Thanks again to everyone.

sketch
 

OK, here's the sketch I made before I started my last pastel. It's very basic, it's intention was more composition and color block-ins. I thought the colors looked ok to me; they're much stronger and saturated than the reference, and I figured they'd look better in the finished product.

Don't know how much info can be gathered from the sketch, but any opinions are welcome. Thanks.

Ahhh Jimmie if I could only suffer as you! :)

I am with Chris on the background stuff, and everyone else on the kudo's.

B

Looking good as usual, Jimmie.

Turns out backgrounds are more important than I thought. I changed my block in procedure after reading this --->(click here for link to download). It's some insanely useful Sargent notes which discuss his integration of backgrounds into his portrait subjects. I did a 2-hour alla prima demo this past Friday, and wow, did this info hit the mark!

Hope it helps!

Thanks for the info, I'll read it whan I get more time. I guess I'll change the color, not sure what to. I'll have to make more sketches before I decide on something. It's only one coat of color, so it'll be easy to cover. Wallis paper is supposed to take up to 25 layers. I think I've gotten close to that in my previous piece during all my confusion. Thanks again.

Please don't get mad at me Chris, I had to see what the ochre looked like!

I actually like the way it looks, I'm going to rework the face after I've completed the background which will be a bit lighter. In my defense of the background, my wife likes it, and if it bothered her, she'd let me know.

The purple was purposely smudged because I did'nt like the way it was coming out. I may leave it till the end and decide what to do with it.

The frame is from a program, was playing around to find a good cropping point.

Any comments or critiques appreciated.

Jimmie this is fabulous. I think it shouldn't be long before you are doing this FT. I really like the light blue/ochre background mixture and I wonder if it would help to go a bit farther with the blue to cool more of the background. One area that I would be tempted to change is the stripe of ochre - I like the stripe concept but the hair under the chin is so close in value and color to it that when I squint my eyes it (the hair) becomes lost - I guess I just want to see better the marvellous treatment of that hair.

I LOVE your sensitive and deft modelling of the face. Excellent!!

Jimmie, I agree, this is fabulous! I love the dramatic lighting. I'd love to see your work in person. (90 miles seems doable). :thumbsup: :thumbsup: I hope this is about done!

Garth

Jimmie--

I'm not worried about you a bit! All of the solutions are already in your first post.

This is really shaping up.

Best--TE

Jimmie, this is much better than I envisioned it from the sketch. Could we have some close-ups please?

Jean

Thanks everyone for the encouragement.

That are will be lightened along with the rest of the background. I will most likely simply drag a piece of lighter pastel over it so the original paper color and darker ochre still show. If need be, I'll rehandle the hair if it does'nt stand out enough. There will be some more blue added to the background.

Well Garth, I'll show you mine if you show me yours. Wait, that did'nt come out right!!! The trunk of my car is huge, I can take them with me to Philly as long as you show me some works in progress. Deal?

Does a bear go poopie in the woods? Is the pope catholic? Is Beth America's new sweetheart? Those answers are yes, but mine is no. I still need several hours.

Thank you Tom and Jean, once I put a few more hours into it, I'll post some closeups. Currently, the face is'nt much different than the original closeup posted.

I just had to chime in after watching this develop. I love this painting but I am especially drawn to the way you treated the lighting on the right side of the hair. I like how you are tying that in with the blue in the background. It's really a stunner.

Beautiful Jimmie
Very excited to see your work in color. and I like the drama of the lighting and the pose (back of the hair is delicious). I agree, soon you will be FT.

A Great Big Fan!!!
Patty

It's 3am and I need to wake up at 7 to get my daughter ready for school so I'll try to make this quick. First, of course, I gotta thank Pat and Lisa for the kind words and hope they, along with everyone else likes the finished(?) product.

.....and this is if I had it framed.

Bravo Jimmie,

Beautiful job. I like that you had the color scheme planned from the start and hunted it down so effectively. You paint like a master.

Allan

I absolutely love it! The way you use the pastels really appeals to me, it looks so natural and effortless, ( even though you say it isn't),always the sign of an accomplished artist. You have given me the inspiration to carry on trying :thumbsup:

And you were worried about....?

Incredibly three dimensional! Beautiful colors. She literally breathes inside the frame. What a delightful way to start my day, to see this portrait, Jimmie!!! :thumbsup:

Yowza!

:thumbsup: :thumbsup:

MAN Jimmie! This is the best ever. You are a Pastel Superstar (already)!

Now let's compile your thread into a video tutorial.

Bravo!

Garth

Yes, yes, yes!

Jean

Thank you all very much for such kind words.

But.....now that I had some sleep, I don't like the shirt. I like the colors, but not the shapes involved. Meaning the lines that separate the fabric don't look right with the rest of the pic. It bothers me the more I look at it, gotta see how much it bothers me when I get home and study it.

Thanks again. Very grateful for all the encouragement.

JImmie,

Very very successful!


I love that you are paying so much attention to making the whole picture a success. The front of the shirt is perfect, the colors are perfect, I think you just need to adjust the values and their transition at the back fo the sleeve whene it joins the the back of the shirt, moving under the hair.

You are raising your own bar, and it will pay huge dividends for you. Well done.

Hercules... Hercules! clapclapclap

Jimmie, this is so beautiful, it just shimmers and glows and draws you right in. I love the colors and the design.

Here's a nit-pick: measure the distance of the stripe on the far left and make sure you are even all the way up with the edge of the paper. You might be off near the top. (I did a striped background recently and that was the thing that most drove me crazy.)

It just occurred to me that most of your graphite drawings of women have the women making eye contact with the viewer and your pastels so far show the women looking away. I'm going to go check this out and make sure but I think I'm right in this. Hmmmmm. Velly eenteresteeng.

Bravo!
 

Jimmy, it's beautiful. The shirt thing is a piddlin' thing that I am sure you will fix in no time. I love the color scheme and the light on the hair.

Jimmy this is beautiful. I especially like the blue light in her hair. :thumbsup:

Impressive art work
 

Jimmie,

Your drawing skills are particularly impressive and evident in this work. I am hesitant to offer any critical comments because this work is in progress and you are probably aware of the things that I may note.

My eye moves to the sharp contrast between light and shadow on the shirt seam in the bottom right. Unless you intend for the viewer

Thanks all for the comments and advice.

Thanks Beth, I'm at work and this made me laugh and made work much easier.

Gotta admit, I never adjusted it because I hope it did'nt bother anyone cuz it did'nt bother me. Hmm, I just reread that last thought and it was'nt meant to be sarcastic just in case it sounded like it. It was meant in a sneaky funny manner like I was trying to get away with something. I would never speak to Linda that way, maybe to Beth. :o

That is velly eenteresteeng. Never fear, the next pastel will be dead on contact. If I can do it right, she'll look right thru you.

Edgar, the edges were bothering me, I tried fiddling this morning but only had a couple of minutes. Will get back to it in a couple of days. Thanks for the advice and breakdown, very appreciated. Welcome to the forum, looking foward to your participation.

Yeah, that's me with the drawing. I had another one in the finalist area. Thank you again.

Thanks again everyone.

I hate to be the Scrooge here, but I do see some problems, with an otherwise outstanding "Jimmie".

You have two areas of visual conflict. The strong blue light on the hair, which I like fights with the violet shirt. The eye goes back and forth between the two strong colors and the face becomes seondary. I tried some color aid paper but it is hard to do it on a monitor.

Leave it for a while, take a few breaths and try this. Scribble colors on a seperate piece of paper and hold it up to the pastel.

What I may think might work is if the shirt goes navy and there is a sharp orange ( a complementary color) accent somewhere near her head . Her lips? Her cheeks? Look at some Gaugins.

The line in her bottom lip is a bit too strong.

Huh?

The above post by Edgar Coleman was originally posted on March 25, 2005 - and is posted again today as an exact duplicate?

Weird.

I don't know why it put it in again - so I deleted the second one.

That is "weird."

Thanks, Cindy.