Thursday, February 24, 2022

Sand Castles - Figures on Friday!

 

Sand Castles, 8 x 8, Oil on panel, L. Daniel © 2022
Gifted! 

I have so much respect for portrait artists. Capturing someone's unique personality and one of a kind facial expressions is HARD! This "quick" little study of my niece became a multiple day challenge for me. I could not get her face right and had to keep wiping out her entire head to begin it again. It took WAY more time than I expected, but I am finally happy with it. Whew!

Oil Painter Friends, here is a take away tip:
If you run into a problem area like this one while painting... Resist the urge to keep adding more and more paint on top of the problem. Stop. Admit defeat. Deep breath. THEN... Scrub out the small section that you are "fixing", wiping it completely down to the canvas. (Completely.) I use a paper towel carefully wrapped around my finger to tackle the specific area. When area is clean, rebuild the passage from the ground up. Start with the dark neutral underdrawing and re-sketch, then build the color from dark to light. Highlights last. You might have to do it more than once, like me, but you'll be surprised how well it works!

2 comments:

Penny from Enjoying The Simple Things said...

It turned out lovely. Thanks for the tip!

Laurel Daniel said...

Thank you, Penny! You probably already knew that! ;)