Zorn Palette course: 5 - Final details

so i'm going to work from the eyes down towards the nose getting the place right so let's look at the nostril here the way it kind of forms at the top so it starts off with quite a pale pink i've done it quite dark here so i'm going to start painting over that initial dark mark there and also redder as well you know that's where all the blood vessels are living they're living in the cheeks and the nose so we want to make it look quite warm and just soften the edge there just take the excess off and then the actual shape of the nose so we've got the patch of skin tone and i'm just going to put a little bit of ochre into that mixture there a little too red that's better keep rocking back and just assessing how it goes bit by bit and then we get into this real difficult area so i've got this line here a bit too high it needs to come a lot lower i say a lot lower it's only a few millimeters but that's acres in portraiture terms so just take this light further down so it's this stage that is where likeness and character and expression really start to come and it's the bit of the portrait painting process that is the most fiddly and sometimes the bits that i enjoy least because you're constantly trying to chase the likeness and sometimes it happens and it happens sometimes quickly or effortlessly and sometimes it's a real battle and it takes a long time and you're going back and forth back and forth and that's perfectly perfectly normal many artists successful portrait artists have that same thing they will experience and practice but it still takes its toll sometimes it's as much of a mental discipline as it is a skill and it's about sort of taking control and not letting the painting win you've got to win a little battle between you both so i think the base of the nose is there that's way too light but it's just good to have that reference point of where it is and again the edge of the nose as i originally put is somewhere on the edge here possibly taken in a bit now because it is curving away from us i don't want to have a crisp line again that'll make it look flat cartoon-like so if i make it a just allow the edge to sort of melt away that's going to give that illusion that the nose is turning away from us and again strengthen the shadows restrict the shadows if it's dark put it and paint it as dark and it really is quite dark right on that tip of that nose just by there and likewise like i restated the dark the same goes for the highlights as well so this light just needs to come down and there's a really pleasing warm transition between those two which is just that kind of goes over those two points there we've also got the highlight again not pure white but almost pure white which just sits about there my eyes are in back and forth back and forth check check check check i feel actually i've been probably a bit too harsh and dark on this part of the nose it could go lighter and red actually oh that's quite red let's take that down warmer there you are it's much nicer just take that darkness that's behind there back a fraction but backwards painting there with a brush okay now all this side is pale am i going to do that i'm going to allow the background to do all that or shall i put something in it needs to go darker under the nose that's for sure tonally speaking and then now i'm back to the nose and i can put in this dark shadow so clean brush pure black and put that in there to really strengthen that's just going to help that nose really stand out because i've got that dark against the light and that goes up into the nostril then about there just take that back a bit wipe that off just push that away there we're going to hit some of our cool greeny colors just sort of here and then let's get the character of the mouth now so i'm following the dark tone here the way it comes down possibly a little further than where i've put it and then that goes up to where i believe the mouth is sort of hiding that'll take me all the way down to there so let's get that warm it's a sort of okra warm it's an orangey warm actually if i put that there and it's sort of here and that's the transition and again just keeping it all soft just a few flecks to describe the texture of that let's just bring that down a bit further and then it suddenly gets i should swap brushes uh paler on this side here quite cool as well the pale grey and again just soften that that'll give the illusion of hair without me having to paint individual strands which will just look it'll just look artificial and it'll look like straw you just want to sort of suggest it i'm just looking at the shape of that and just taking the edges again and just allowing them to melt away into what's around them i want to take a section now of the what's behind here will just help the beard stand out just that little bit more because it'll be against something that's slightly lighter let me just check if i go down the right place yeah where's the point oh so the point of it just comes out a little bit more i'm just gonna take the point of this out just a bit more here i love this strong highlight on the clothing and almost use thick pure white just to go just to get that across there and that fantastic contrast and balance that then with the dark which we can see next to it trying to do that one brush stroke if you can't do one brush stroke put a little linseed oil on the brush and that'll just help it just go that bit further and let's just look at the collar there do i want to brighten up i'll see what it looks like if you're not sure about something you know you can just try put a bit mark on and just ask yourself does that work i think that's just a bit too strong whenever the light will attract the eye so just i just wanted to lighten it a little but not so much that it will be a focal point and oh i need to put a stronger highlight in don't i just under the elmer on the weather naked i think it does need to be brighter just with one brush stroke taking that back there just soften the edges sometimes you can do it without softening the edges and other times just needs a little bit of assistance let's look at some of the hair just final few touches so i'm working with my highlight almost pure white here it's very tempting to go overboard with detail long hair but just a few flecks here there and everywhere now this final sort of stage is just looking at the picture as a whole i'm thinking what so little things can i do just to sort of balance it am i achieving what i set out to do you know have i achieved you know of capturing the skin if i am i happy with the design am i happy with some of the brush strokes and the placements if i cut the facial features right it's a good time to sort of take a little break just have a quick reflect on that and we'll come back and see if it's finished so the final part of the portrait is just to check a few little things over and i often adopt the mirror at this stage just to help me look at the picture objectively so i've got this little small mirror and i hold it up and look at the reverse image of the painting and the image side by side and by doing that i can see the whole thing that i've been looking at for a while with a fresh pair of eyes and automatically i can see just a few things i want to slightly adjust and bring this portrait together so one thing is the jaw here i feel the jaw needs to come back slightly i've got it coming inwards a little bit so i just take uh the brush that's going to do that job and just pop the brush and push it back and then down you can just check what it looks like so artists have been using this method of the mirror for centuries it's a wonderful way of looking at your picture objectively and checking just take the highlight a bit further up into there sometimes i do this throughout the whole process of the painting sometimes i just do it at the end just to check if i missed anything and i don't always use it sometimes i feel it's needed particularly when getting that accurate lightness is key i find it such a useful tool but then other times it's just quite nice to leave it as a sketch so i want to just darken the tone here under the eyebrow and that's a cast shadow by the hair that comes down and this is check out how it looks now good and let's just soften it up then on the edges what i can do is i can get a softer bristle brush so this brush isn't hog it's a natural soft disabled brush which is very good just for taking hard edge brush strokes to allow them just to disappear and merge away just like that so you can apply with them or quite often i use them just to take things back i'll paint for example if i take a bit of highlighter to feel the highlights needed to strengthen there and soft table brushes produce really lovely brush strokes the temptation though is to go blend blend happy so avoid that urge to mix mix mix and blend blend blend and i want to finish off that nice flick of the hair which is this one here which just goes up into this space up there like that and i'm sure you can see many more things that need doing to it but i think for me that's uh pretty much all i feel i want to do in regards to a background you can if you want to put a little bit of a color in a background or at least some mark making you might want to put a bit of a white so i could just take for example the brush here and just do that and just put a bit of white there you can see how it just helps that edge of the hair stand out just that little bit more and then if i just allow that just to melt away you can even put just a hint of the mineral spirits on your brush and just allow that to melt away and i don't really mind too much seeing some of those initial drawing marks i think that's sort of part of the aesthetic of the whole picture and then when it comes to the edge of the hair again just take the brush slightly overlap it and it kind of melts away and gives that illusion of off hair and i'm just going to tidy up this area down the bottom just so it kind of balances out so again taking that white almost pure white i'm popping it on the edge of the beard so i'm putting a nice light against the dark classic technique of really helping the dark stand out i'm not going to go too far up just allow it just to disappear and then again just take the very tips of the bristles and just tickle the edge allow them all to marry marrying with each other i am going to just soften the edge of the whiskers here just tickle them out just a little bit just to give that texture so there you have it that's my approach to doing the zorn palette portrait remember how it started it started off with that base color that kind of cool gray so we've got a lovely balance between the cool colors of the grays of the clothing and the hair and the background and then that's balanced with the warm tones of the face started off with the drawing thinking about getting the head life size and that central line with the eyes nose mouth thinking about that 50 sort of accuracy and then honing that in just that little bit further uh drawing it again aiming for that 80 you're sort of doing it in slow little steps and when i felt like i've got enough of information with that i would then take my bigger brushes and start blocking in and thinking about blocking in those darkest tones first working then towards my mid tones and highlights and that blocking in is the you know really important part of getting the full makeup and the full structure of the portrait and then everything else from then on is pure decorative you're playing with getting those facial features right so i started with the eyes and worked out to end towards the nose and the mouth and then balancing everything else and that just leaves the final job so that's my approach of doing a limited palette portrait using the zorn palette [Music]

Channel: Peter Keegan Artist

Views: 21,667

Keywords: Painting class, painting, oil painting, zorn palette, portraiture, portraits, art, allaprima, zorn, oils, oil portrait, portrait painting

Id: y68NUEkYMNs

Length: 17min 43sec (1063 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 16 2022