Figure 1 has a face now

Hooray!  This buff little guy has a face now!  He was the first figure I painted in, you might remember, and I got to his face and made a few attempts at it but didn’t know what direction to take with all their faces.  So I moved on from him.  Now I’ve come back and put his face together. He’s cute, he has a baby face and a football players body.  I decided to paint their faces in all the way, pretty tight.  I didn’t know if I would like the tight painting of their faces in contrast to the loose big strokes of the sand, grass, water, hills.  But I love it.  The figures are starting to sit right in their space.  When I paint in a face I first measure where the features will go, with my divider/compass (I think it’s a divider because it’s pointy on both sides) and I mark where the eyes, nose, ear, hairline, and corners of mouth go.  At that stage the portrait is pretty terrible looking and I ALWAYS have a moment or two of self doubt.  But then I put in the darks (which makes it look worse), the medium tone, and the light.  I use 3 values to start. Then I take a picture of my painted image and a photo of the photo I’m using (so both are the same size) and I flip back and forth between the two on my phone and make adjustments.  What needs to be changed becomes pretty obvious that way.  I look at faces as shapes and values.  Whew.  I have 2 more faces to work out.  They all have faces but I’ve found it takes two passes to get them looking the way I want.

I hope I’m not boring you all posting the same painting in parts.  It’s one that has a lot to it.

I love the “heat” on those 2 girls, the one in purple and blue.  And look at her little foot and the clam in her hand.  It’s nice when I can look back and enjoy things I’ve painted, it’s not always that way.

Thanks for looking!