I am not a realistic figure painter. I am a painter trained at the end Abstract Expressionism and by that time the principles and thinking passed down to me was do what you will. When I finally got to the time in my life where my time is my own, old retired guy, I realized that the best training for painting is realism, especially figures (nudes) and portraits.
It is the easiest way to be sure your are exactly on target with what you set out to do. Genetically we are predisposed to recognize our own species. If there is anything wrong with the painting from a realism standpoint even the most uneducated person in Art can effectively criticize the piece. That takes care of one half of the criticism. The second half, the application of the pigment and the impact (expression) of the piece can be discussed after the realism is set.
Consider the stuff that you see on Google+ the range is amazing from true beginners to master painters. If there’s a figure presented supposedly realistic and it looks like a Picasso during the height of Cubism regardless what the painter might tell you, or fool himself with, he didn’t achieve his objective.
BTW if you want to see what a figure should be talk to an illustrator. This is not to say that illustrators are perfect, they’re not, but her finished work always nails the figure perfectly with expression. Also she’ll know how to manipulate her materials to achieve professional looking results. After all if you eat what you sell, you better be good enough to sell. The fault that realistic illustrators have is that if she does not capture the model she will make the model pretty.
I began re-training myself in 2010. My plan is to achieve realistic accuracy and expression. Beyond that, I plan to explore transparency and reflection. My focus is water media, particularly watercolor, gouache, egg tempera and acrylic, in that order. I draw with a pencil and metalpoint.
In the beginning, 2010, I decided that the Zorn limited palette would be the perfect fit into my painting palette, four colors, white, vermillion, yellow ochre and black. The story is that Zorn used this simple palette for all of his figures. Baloney. Zorn traveled to Algiers and painted the natives there. (Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons) Despite how much you try, you cannot achieve the darkest human skin tones with the Zorn palette.
Living in a multi-racial city the skin tones range from strawberry blonde white, creamy albino through light cappuccino (touch of yellow) to coffee brown and purple brown black (residents of the African equator). With Zorn’s palette I can achieve the skin tones up to coffee brown. To go that extra dark, Zorn added blue. Which blue is open for discussion, personally I added Ultramarine Blue. There is some research that says after his death hundreds of tubes of color were found in his house including seven large tubes of Cobalt Blue.
My application of watercolor is a series of cross hatches with a thickish pigment load on the brush usually over a monochromatic wash. I this experiment my grisaille was Ultramarine Blue (PB29), then I applied the Zorn palette and finished with a wash Raw Umber (PBR7). The photo on the left is the finished product of my experiment. The silver metal pieces at the left and right of my painting are the clips I use to hold it on my easel.
Emboldened by this experiment, I moved to the mid-range African American skin, sort of dark Cafe latte.
In this series of photos, you can see the underpainting of the figure, the application of the Zorn palette and the final wash in this case PBr7, Raw Sienna.
BTW, PBr7 encompasses 5 colors, Raw Umber, Burnt Umber, Raw Sienna, Burnt Sienna and Green Earth. I use Sennelier’s dry pigments, all are transparent.
Once again you get a picture of the fixture that I made to hold my paintings on my easel. In this series all of the paper is 300# Fabriano Hot Press Extra White. I cut my paper down to 6 by 9 inches.
I noticed that the quality of the final wash was grayish. In order to achieve the highlights on the figure I relied on Zorn’s white.
All white pigment in watercolor is opaque. Adding it to the mixture deadens the color. While I am a junkie for white, my favorite is Holbein’s Antique White, this painting showed to me that the addition of the pigment reduces the vibrancy.
This painting’s success pushed me into the third in the series, Asian skin tones. Asian skin has been a conversation between the easels at the Palette and Chisel for a while. The Palette and Chisel is the premier Artists’ Club in the USA.
The skin in this Asian model uses the same technique, Ultramarine grisaille, Zorn palette and is finished with alternate washes of Yellow Ochre (PY43) and Raw Sienna (PBr7).
The two African American models are from Croquis Cafe, onairvideo.com The Asian model from Wikimedia Commons.
I was troubled by the opacity of my skin tones. I got to this exploration from a quick sketch open session with my friend and favorite model Melissa.
It was one of those rare times that I captured both the formal elements, expression and color all in a half hour.
This sketch lead me to re-doing the same sketch. No matter how hard that I try, I cannot get the freshness of the first attempt with the studio copy. Regardless, this painting is the development of skin tone using the Zorn palette on white skin.
I continued with the second model from the open session at the Oak Park Art League, Whitney, with the same success.
Finally, thankfully, this leads me to this. The Zorn palette minus the white. This painting, 5 by 7 inches on 140# Cold Press captures both my coloration and textural (im)perfections of my old face. I did use my favorite white coloring the chambray shirt.
