Another digital portrait from last year (or maybe even earlier!) that I’m only posting now (woops!). This is not the first time I’ve painted this model. What can I say? The proportions of her face just seem so mathematically perfect to me!
I really miss doing portraits. I am this close to putting the call out on Facebook or Instagram asking for people to send me pictures of them just so I don’t have to fall back on self-portraits or pestering my immediate family to pose for me.
I experimented with a new (well, new to me) digital art software last year called ArtRage. It styles itself as a “natural” painting software, which I guess means that they don’t over-burden the program with all kinds of photo editing doodads and just keep to the essentials. ArtRage also limits their brushes to only a few wet and dry media, palette knives and the like, so if you’re new to digital art, you’re less likely to feel overwhelmed. Best of all, they make very believable visible brush strokes, which is what first drew me to the software. Oh, and the price is very affordable – always a good thing! I had an easier time negotiating the colour palette in Artrage in comparison with Photoshop, but blending turned out to be a little difficult (but then, maybe I just haven’t experimented with it enough).
When I made this, I was trying to get away from working from images found on the internet, but Salem Mitchell has such glorious freckles that I couldn’t resist!
On a whim, I decided last week to crack open one of my many vintage magazines and see if I could reproduce an image. I am beyond amazed that I actually managed to 1) finish something, and 2) find that I’m happy with the result, especially considering how flat and grainy the original image was! I especially wanted to throw in the towel once I got to rendering the hair (never my strong suit). Let’s hear it for perseverence!
To me, this portrait is a direct result of all the practice, practice, practice that began with the portrait studies of the “30 Paintings in 30 Days” challenge. Even though the reference image had matte colours and little light information, I had completed enough portraits over the last few years to be able to fill in the blanks. There’s no way I would have been able to do this without having put myself through that “boot camp”!
We had a stellar view from our Huttopia campsite at the Baie Ste-Marguerite sector of Parc Nationale du Saguenay. Imagine my surprise when I learned that the bay is subject to low tide on a daily basis and essentially turns into a large sandbar during most daylight hours. Great for exploring, but… not the swimming hole we were expecting.
Still, early mornings and evenings were spectacular. Believe it or not, there was even a heron posed in the long grass (for real!), but I didn’t include it in the painting because I thought it would end up looking fake.
Almost six months into this crazy alternate reality that is Life in Lockdown, doesn’t it feel like we’re all driving down a lonely highway in the middle of the night? We know that we’ll eventually end up at our destination (safe and sound, hopefully), but until then, while we’re still in transit… it can all seem a little frightening. Stay safe, everyone!
EMMA PITTSON 