Sat 25 Oct 2008
Somthing BIG in the Studio…….
Posted by Melanie Phillips under All Work in Progress
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HI Everyone!
I’m starting to blog the portrait that im currently working on ….and its a BIG one! Its 30×20 and only just fits on my easel. This isn’t the first time I have done a large portrait at this size, but they are usually multiple heads or landscapes with lots of sky. This commission is very different with close up full body dog surrounded by flowers and trees. I have blogged just two stages so far, I have gone a little further, however I want to blog some of the more blocked in stages in a large lump, so you’ll have to wait to see the colourful background stages!
As you can see below this is the drawn in stage and it took pretty much a whole day to draw onto the canvas. I wanted to make sure I had enough detail in there, but of course not too much as I was just going to go over it with paint. So it took about one day to draw it out, and the second day was blocking in the main areas of the dog.
If you are working to a large size like this I really recommend investing in some large brushes and don’t be afraid to put out a good amount of paint on your pallet. You will find as soon as you have mixed a colour it only takes a couple of strokes with the brush on the canvas and you have to mix more. So for those of you who are worried about colour mixing really don’t panic too much at this stage about the colour itself as it will only be the under coat, as long as its darker you should be fine as we work from dark to light in oils.
I am constantly asked about colour mixing as many of my students find it so difficult to do. I am lucky in that I have never had to really think too hard about how to mix a colour on my pallet, and Nick finds it even easier than I do, so I do find it difficult to understand how and why students find this a challenge. Having said this I am very aware they have difficulty so try my best when teaching and am always on the lookout for tips and techniques to pass onto them to guide them with their colour mixing. So my tip for the undercoat colours on the dog, particularly in this portrait I am working on as an example, is to look mainly at the tones and always keep the colours darker for the first layer so that you can build upon them. The great thing about oils is that they can always been worked over again and again!
I will blog some more stages soon!
