I'm going to post some pictures I took of the process of painting Zoey's portrait. It's useful to review the process, both the successful and unsuccessful parts (I've included one of those deliberately). This was a 10-day workshop and I tried to take photos at least once daily during that time.


Day 1 -- In drawing, the block in is where you establish the basic dimensions of the picture, like how high versus wide is the head, and where is the line of the shoulders, and how much of the body is included in the picture, and what is the angle of the head. In painting you do the same thing only you include the very general color shapes such as the triangle of Zoey's headscarf and the shape of her top (which changed once as you can see -- at first she had the shawl closed around her torso). The paint is thinned with mineral spirits to make it flow quickly, so the canvas is still visible beneath the paint. Nothing here is set in stone. The idea is just to get the canvas covered.


Day 2 -- It was a very cloudy day, and the light was dim from the north window all day. I wanted to mark very generally where the lights and darks were on Zoey -- the left (our right) side of her head, the shadows on her left collarbone, the shadow cast by her arm across her shawl, the darker areas of her top, the very bottom of the armrest. I wanted stronger colors overall and more accurate colors, closer to what I was actually seeing. I adjusted her hand because her thumb wasn't visible any more, opened her eyes, and painted in her earring.


Day 4 -- Zoey's eyes in the cold north light are a very light bluish gray. It was hard to get them the right color. Here they are too light. Her earring was actually lapis, a royal blue, but I tried making it a dark green at first because I was afraid the blue would be too jarring. I worked especially hard this day on the pattern of her shawl, which was a gorgeous jacquard woven in all sorts of greens, golds and chocolate browns. I also spent a lot of time on her hand, trying to make the foreshortening work and accurately paint the shading on the far side of her wristbone. I made her nose a lot redder, because the blood vessels in nose, ears and chin are very close to the skin and those parts of the face are the rosiest. These are all places where I knew I was going to have to do more work -- I'm still trying to work from the general to the specific. I'm also trying to think about temperature, and looking at the cool green reflection from her top bouncing onto the underside of her jawline and the left shoulder and neck. The blackboard behind her was a really difficult thing to paint ... was it gray? Blue? I couldn't figure it out.

Day 5 -- Frustrated at the end of the week, I took a day off and painted a one-day study as a break.


Day 6 -- Beginning of the second week. Now her earring is blue and I don't like it but I'm not thinking about it right now. Her scarf is less orange than it was, and I tried to show how it's thinner in back and has more folds in front. I also realized that it was not as far forward on her forehead as I'd had it, so I pushed it back on her head to show more of her high forehead. I lightened her eyebrows because they were too dark (you can still see one darker eyebrow) and darkened her eye color to try to get it more accurate. The strong green under her jawline changed to a lighter, less specific color. Her nose bothered me; it was too big for her face, and her mouth was too small; seen full on, Zoey has a wide mouth that contrasts with her long oval face, and I couldn't get it right. There's a very awkward dark brown shadow on the inside of her left arm, next to her top.


Day 8 -- Oh, BOY did I mess this up. I could tell that Zoey's face was too dark, and I tried to lighten it all day long on Day 7, but it was still dark on the morning of Day 8, and I said "what the hell" and threw myself into it. At midmorning I could see that she had suddenly turned into a terrifying clown with pancake white makeup on. Aaaaaaugh! Well, fortunately, you can always repaint an oil. I took a photo of it to remind myself how NOT to do things.


Day 9 -- Still too pale, but not so horribly so. I'm still struggling with the nose and mouth. The hand got a little better, and I took some minty green paint and just carelessly jabbed in the highlights on her top, which was one of those stretch velvet things that have lots of luster. I'm trying to figure out how to make the background look -- dark towards her shawled shoulder and lighter on top? and also trying to make sure that the edge of her hair against the blackboard is not a sharp line. When lines are very sharp, the shape they outline appears flat to the viewer; when the lines are less sharp, the object can be made to appear to move back in space more. I didn't want her head to look like a cut out, so I wanted the edge to be blurry. Also take a look at her near shoulder -- in the previous picture it makes almost a right angle at her neck, and I realized that I had painted her without a trapezius muscle on that side (thank you, Matt Buckner, teacher of Artistic Anatomy!). Fixed it.


Day 10 -- Here is the final version. I blurred out the line between the blackboard and the wall to the right. Changed her earring to a light green, because it was too attention-getting in its true lapis color. I realized this morning that her earring had been unintentionally placed smack in the middle of the canvas, and it was going to be impossible to look anywhere else if the color wasn't pushed back some. Tried to make her far cheekbone, and the whole shaded side of her face, appear less flat and more like it was turning away from us. This is called "turning the form" and is a huge challenge. The skill to make things appear round on a flat surface is something I am still learning. I blended the colors between her face and neck so that she doesn't appear pancaked any more, and made her nose narrower (finally!).

I'm very happy with it. It's not perfect, it's not even great, but I do feel that I learned and accomplished a lot. Thank you, Yuqi and Zoey.