Portrait
Painting in Acrylics
Painting
the Jacket
Artists
often use a more spontaneous painting technique with
looser brushwork and heavier pigment when they paint
the outer clothing in a portrait. This is done to
contrast with and consequently focus the sharper detail
of the head.
For a similar reason, the tone and detail of our jacket
darkens and diminishes towards the edge of the portrait
to avoid any possible distraction from the focal point
of the face.
The
underpainting of the jacket was built up with several
glazes of sap green to achieve a dark translucent
surface. The edge of the lapels and collar of the
jacket received fewer coats of the glaze to highlight
their outline.
The
rendering of the folds of the jacket cloth was achieved
by following the usual process:
- refining
the tone, colour and texture
The
Dark Tones
were painted with thicker than usual glazes of prussian
blue mixed with sap green and applied with a half inch
hogs hair filbert brush. These darker tones establish
the basic shape of the folds on the jacket. As you begin
to paint more freely with a lager brush, it is important
that you know exactly what you are trying to do. Therefore,
the drawing of the shapes of the folds was worked out
in advance in a preparatory study so that little was left
to guesswork.
The
Light Tones were painted with a mixture of permanent light
green mixed with titanium white and applied with a quarter
inch hogs hair filbert brush. It was important to use
titanium white in the mixture as its opacity was necessary
to cover the dark underpainting. The light tones begin
to establish the highlights of the folds and the texture
of the cloth. Their colour must be brighter than necessary
because they will lose some of their intensity when they
are blended into the underpainting.
Refining
the Tone, Colour and Texture is the final stage in painting
the jacket. The aim is to carefully blend and balance
the dark and light tones with the underpainting, smoothing
out any awkward looking bumps and filling in any irregularities
in the paint surface in order to create a smooth fabric
with natural folds. This process has the effect of reducing
the contrasts between the darkest and lightest tones of
the jacket and unifying the overall effect.
Painting
Technique
The
actual size detail above gives a close-up view of
the painting technique used for the jacket.
The
basic dark and light tones were rendered with larger and
stiffer hogs-hair brushes to match the scale of the area
being painted and for greater control over the thicker
paint. Brushing and smudging was the technique that was
most usefully employed at this stage.
The
refinement of the tone, colour and texture was executed
with thinner glazes of colour and mostly stippled with
softer brushes to smooth out any irregularities. Some
very fine glazes of white and yellow were carefully built
up with small brushes to highlight the form, while glazes
of prussian blue and ivory black were applied to increase
the depth of the darkest areas.
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