Facing sideways

Madelaine Boothby · 02-02-2009, 11:09 AM

I am meeting on Sundays with some other artists, we get a model who does long poses. The pose I was presented with yesterday was of a lovely young lady laying down, and i wanted to do her face, of course. I started out with a quick sketch on my arches watercolor paper and COULD NOT get a handle on her face. After at least 30 minutes of erasing, I asked the gal next to me for a piece of paper, and drew the face. It was really hard. I finally got a face with proper proportions, but it wasn't right. I turned the paper over and started again, carefully, breathing, and trying to sketch this gal's face. At the long break, I stood and sketched her while she talked to me about her unusual career, with her head upright. I was able to patch it up a little bit but still wasn't happy. Finally, I had 1 hour left to go and decided to just paint and see what came up. I liked my painting better than I liked the two sketches that I spent most of my time on; albeit, learning the face.
I took a picture of her which I plan to work from this week in the luxury of my home. I was really surprised that the camera picked up more warm tones from her face and skin than I could see. My eyes kept seeing blue, blue, on her forehead, her shoulder, her eyelids, but the camera did not. I found it unsettling that my eyes were not truer.

There was a problem with the pose that added to its difficulty. Her head kept rolling with gravity. I didn't realize this until the session was almost done; it was, Hey, I didn't see that ear before!

Madelaine Boothby · 02-02-2009, 11:11 AM

Here is the painting. I did not do her justice, but you can see the problems I was having.

Claudemir Bonfim · 02-02-2009, 01:01 PM

I can see your point.

Photographs and reality are two things completely different. That's why we do color sketches.

Most of my works are done from life, I don't like photographs.
If you are going to work from life, you will need to have one refference point always in mind, the tip of the nose, a ear, etc, this helps a lot in case your model moves.

Drawing from general to specifics will help you get a better likeness next time.

Madelaine Boothby · 02-02-2009, 01:22 PM

I'm trying to break this down so I can get better responses, although I thank you very much for your suggestion about a focal point.

1. Is the answer to the moving model just finding a better pose? I think she was really trying to be still. She never moved the rest of her body, only her head and fingers, which was a bummer for me, the only one trying to just paint her face.

2. The not seeing the colors as they really were is troubling to me. I knew instinctively that this lady was not blue of course, but that is what I was seeing. Should I just paint blue or compensate?

3. The sideways view, also perplexing, I could turn the picture of the head straight and correct things and then turn it back sideways and NOT see it. I'm curious how other people handle that. I know for sure that I am going to practice with the photo this week to see if I can get any better at seeing sideways.

Thanks again for any suggestions or thoughts!

Allan Rahbek · 02-02-2009, 07:57 PM

Hi Madelaine,

1. It is a good idea to settle on a pose that is easy to hold when you plan for a long sitting. Try to find one that is easy to do, one that has good edges, some hard, some soft and some lost edges.

Apart from the nice hard edge of the left cheek our pose has mostly soft edges and almost no lost edges. It is difficult to define a face if there is that little variation, and the slowness of the watercolor proces makes it even more difficult. Sometimes you just have to wait.

I would have expected some lost edges under the head, by the neck and on the shadow side of the nose and the right eye.

I don't believe in the the light values in her right eye and the light on her right cheek sinse the light seems to come from above.

2. If the model is a real redhead then she might have very pale skin (a wonderful challenge for the painter) and it will look a bit bluish compared to the red hair. I don't think that the skin color looks wrong on the painting. The blue background holds the blue skin color back.

3. The alignment of the features, eyes, nose and mouth is a tough one on a sideway pose.

You saw my own problems on "Freja". I even noticed it and corrected it a bit on the first version, thought that it was enough, but it wasn't.

My suggestion is; find a pose with some clearly defined edges, hard, soft and lost, and some clearly defined values, light on the upside and dark underside. The hand could catch the light while the right underside of the face is dark. Things like that.

Look forward to the result.

John Reidy · 02-04-2009, 02:31 AM

Hello Madelaine,

I only wanted to add 2 points specific to your post -

1. I find that your eyesight is always a better judge of colors than the camera. The camera can be a terrible tool regarding color and values. Be very careful.

2. The head turned on its side will be off of what we normally see when we view the head in an upright position due to the gravitational pull on the fleshy parts of the face, like the cheeks. It appears you have caught that in your painting. I just don't think turning the sheet will really add anything more than to change your reference like when you place your painting upside down or sideways to double check.

Good luck. It sounds like a great exercise.

David Clemons · 02-13-2009, 12:09 PM

Many times the features of the face are less symmetrical than we're led to believe. The mind tells us one thing and the eyes another. Trust the eyes.

If you concentrate on first getting down the things that are the most critical in terms of placement before the model may move, then it won't matter as much when she does. A few quick lines to get things in their place is often all you need. After that, the model is more a reference than the source of literal copying.

Madelaine Boothby · 02-14-2009, 11:43 AM

Wow, I had not received any further notifications and so many people wrote such valuable suggestions on here. Thank you. I have indeed determined that even with young pretty girls, parts of the face DO sag towards the pull of gravity. This accounts for some of the distortion that I found, but not all of it.
I found the changing light of the day rather maddening, but here is my second try at painting her. She felt better this time and held still a lot better.
and thanks, ALL of you for your wisdom.

Michele Rushworth · 02-14-2009, 12:21 PM

What an interesting thread -- and a great improvement in the resulting image. Kudos to you for attempting such a challenging pose in such a challenging medium!

Richard Budig · 06-18-2009, 02:15 PM

Sorry to come so late to this conversation . . .

I used to study with a painter who would appoint one of us (in the workshop) as keeper of the pose. When the model would drift, settle, or get off pose, the "keeper" would correct the pose. He also used to put a dab of masking tape on the wall, or somewhere the model could see it and use it a bit like radar . . . something to fix a gaze on. This usually worked well for everyone.

As to seeing bllue, or any other color on your model, I used to work with another painter who often said that he had never seen a model that affected the background, but he had seen many backgrounds that affected the model . . . in other words, it intirely possible to see blue, or other colors on your model's skin. I'm not sure you should paint it in a garish manner, but it it's there, it ought to be included in some way.