Painting is such a personal thing. I think each of us, over time, evolves a process, an approach to painting and drawing that works for usto a greater or lesser extent. For most of us, that process is most likely a mish-mash of our own discoveries, stuff we’ve learned from books,elements we’ve picked up from other people or online and personal foibles that may help or hinder without our being consciously aware of eitherhappening as we paint.
For myself, I’ve done all my practice over the last few years at home, in comparative isolation. I needed to. I get confused by too muchincoming information and have to close off to make sense of things. I think that’s a necessary part of what we do.
But sometimes I think it can be a healthy thing to be taken out of our comfort zones and to be forced to deal with situations that mightrequire a different perspective, a change to the process, and with that can come an opportunity for learning. It was with this thought in mind thatI signed up for an evening portrait painting class at the back end of last year. Also, I wanted access to live models since I was gettingtired of looking at myself in a mirror.
I’d just done a bunch of practice work around conceptualising form and thestructure of heads, and I was looking forward to trying some of this stuff out on live heads. The classI signed up for ran for 12 weeks, two and a half hours on a Thursday night after work. We had four poses in total in that time, each one lasting forthree weeks. I liked the idea of being able to work for multiple sessions on a single pose, not many courses I found allowed for that.I’m not a fast worker.
The first three-week pose was a nude. Feeling a little unsure of myself in the new environment, I just did a sight-size schematic incharcoal followed by a rough sketch in paint in the third session.
The teacher, a portrait painter himself, seemed to be curious about my method and we had a brief chat about sight size during which it becameobvious that we had somewhat different ideas of what the phrase meant. I think perhaps it was the first time he’d heard of it to be frankand although he was a fan of Sargent he didn’t appear to know much about his method. Perhaps coming across the sight size method for thefirst time and hearing about it from a student put him out of sorts, but his definition of sight size didn’t make any sense to me at alland was vague at best.
He was a good teacher though, and most of what he said was very sensible and helpful to the students I thought, most of whom werebeginners. His mantra was “painting is the act of comparison” which I still repeat to myself sometimes. That’s particularly true whenworking sight size, where the comparison becomes one to one.
Portrait of Rhea
For the second three-week pose we had a beautiful model called Rhea, a singer. She had wonderfully well definedbone structure and sat naturally, but almost completely stationary. A fantastic model and a painter’s dream.
This was when I hit the first real challenge of working outside my usual set up.
I generally spend a lot of time setting up lighting,and try where possible to work by natural day light. The studio we were working in had just been decked out with new lighting and theycouldn’t have got it more wrong if they’d tried. They had a lighting rig which ran around the whole ceiling in a square, two or threefeet in from the walls, to which they’d fixed alternating fluorescent and warm (very warm) pink incandescent spots. It made it almostimpossible to see colour clearly and the multiple light sources created a complicated pattern of shadow shapes which made form hardto judge. I was well outside of my comfort zone with this set up.
Nonetheless, I was determined to make the best of it and soldiered on. The initial laying out went fairly well. I was about halfway through, using a kind of stripped down, rough and ready sight size method, well back from the easel and using a brush handle instead of threadto line things up. Having to work quickly was forcing me to concentrate on the main, large forms and this was a good thing. After an hour or soI was getting the main forms of Rhea’s head well established. Things were going pretty well when a late arrival turned up wanting to slot inbeside me in the ring of easels around the model.
Now, anyone who works sight size knows that the easel and the model have to stay completely stationary right throughout the piece for themethod to work. If either move, all measurements and relationships are thrown out and you have to start again. So there I was, well into the zone,what Betty Edwards calls R-Mode – the non-verbal, visual, spatial mode of mental processing that drawing demands,when Teach saunters over to my easel and moves it a foot to one side so the new arrival can fit in beside me. Gagh! There was a moment thatseemed like an age when I realised what he was about to do. I can still remember trying to force my brain into verbal mode to protest beforedisaster struck, but I just couldn’t do it in time. He shunted my easel aside, looking round in surprise at the desperate, incoherent,strangled exclamation of frustration that I somehow managed to force out.
It’s fair to say that I was a long, long way out of my comfort zone by this time. A bit too far. It took a little more explaining before theteacher understood what a disaster it is to have your easel moved when working sight size. I think he understands what sight size is now,and how it works. At least, he didn’t try moving my easel again after that. But there was nothing for it but to start again from scratch, nowwith even less time with this wonderful model.
Portrait of Danielle
The next three-week pose turned out to be three poses, a different pose each week and with two different models. I didn’t get anythingusable out of those poses and ended up just doing some drawing practice. Not quite what I signed up for but good practice nonetheless.
For the final three-week pose, we had a new model, a different teacher for the first week and thus a different set-up.
One side of the studiohad large fluorescents attached to the wall, and this teacher turned off all the lights except those. Although the room was darker (andthe original teacher was somewhat disapproving when he came back the following week) I thought it was actually a much better set up.
Lightingwas of one colour only, and from the side, allowing for clearer reading of forms. We also had a black paper background, which made this model’spale skin and resplendent auburn hair sing out. What a wonderful subject.
Unfortunately she turned out to have ants in her pants and couldn’t sit still for more than five minutes at a stretch. Bizarrely, she keptsmiling broadly to herself at some internal thoughts known only to herself. That made her a real challenge to paint. In fact, themajority of this painting was done in the final hour of the third week. I had to completely re-paint her at every sitting, and sometimesafter each break.
One of the problems of mixed classes is that everyone has a different idea of where the model was sitting. Now, I don’t want to be unkind,but if you’re a complete beginner at painting your work is probably not the best guide of where the model was sitting before her break.This class had a ‘majority vote’ approach to placing the model, resulting in some quite wide variances of pose. I’m all for democracy ofcourse, but why couldn’t they just LISTEN TO THE BLOKE WHO’S WORKING SIGHT SIZE!? I knew exactly what position she was in. Sigh. So to me, thisis a painting that almost was. I’m still quite happy with the result and it was certainly a challenge. It goes to show too how much differencea good set up can make I think. The values were so striking in this one, it was a gift. But it could have been so much more.
Out of my comfort zone indeed. Although there were many difficulties to overcome on this course, I was honestly surprised to find that I didn’t need towork with quite the same fastidious approach to measuring that I’d been using in my studies at home. I found that I could be more roughand ready and trust my eyes much more, and still achieve a reasonably accurate result. All that eye training might just be paying off. Ialso found that having to work within a limited time frame forced me to focus on what was important, to simplify, strengthen and to gowith the flow a little more.
But I did want to return to more controlled conditions once the class was finished. Encouraged, I persuaded Michelle to sit for a portraitat home, over a number of short sittings at weekends.
Portrait of Michelle
Firmly back in the comfort zone.
With this portrait, I immediately fell back into old habits. I spent a long time laying things out with my thread, Bargue style. I carefullyjudged the local colours of Michelle’s skin and mixed up strings of value and chroma variations according to the Munsell colour charts.I worked slowly. Now I had all the time I wanted and didn’t need to rush.
So what was the result? Well, firstly, this portrait obviously isn’t finished. In fact I abandoned it due to what I saw as severeinaccuracies of form that the painting was too far through to fix without scrubbing most of it out.
The problem is one of alignment. Her mouth and jaw area are pushed over to the right, throwing out the structure of her head. Theindividual forms don’t fit together properly. I’m quite happy with how each discrete area is painted – her eyes, her nose, her mouth -but they just don’t fit together.
It’s much more obvious when you look at the painting in reverse. This is the value of looking at your paintings in a mirror as you do them.It seems to accentuate inaccuracies although I’m not sure why. I think it’s much clearer here and her mouth seems positively pulled overto the left.
I think it was by checking the painting in a mirror that I first noticed the problem. Something just felt wrong, but I couldn’tdecide what it was. If only I’d checked sooner. By the time I did check and saw the problem, I was so heartbroken at the sheer number of hoursthat had gone into this painting so far that I didn’t have the heart to continue. It stands now as a valuable lesson to me, something to beremembered in future work. What did it teach me?
Well, firstly it taught me that I shouldn’t rely on fastidious sight size measuring to get forms right. The parts still need always tobe related to the whole. Somehow I lost that in this painting. I must have missed some checks that paradoxically I did much better whenI had less time to work and was forced to concentrate on the large forms and not the details. Perhaps this is a personal leaning that I need tobe consciously careful of in future. Perhaps it’s a common thing, something that most people would benefit from building into theirprocess. I certainly don’t think it’s a problem inherent in the sight size approach itself, in fact the opposite is the case. Sight sizeis all about seeing the large forms. I just applied it badly. My carefully worked out process got in the way a little,and what could have been quite a nice piece of work went south.
When I look at these three paintings together, I can see in each one the evidence of the things I did wrong, and what I was struggling with.But I can also see quite clearly how working under conditions that I would normally consider less than ideal has helped me make a betterjob of some aspects of the painting than I might do when I have everything set up to my satisfaction. I’m definitely one of those people wholikes to have everything set up perfectly, everything arranged in its proper place before I begin something. I’m a compulsive planner.Looking at these paintings, and coming to the end of writing this post, I’m realising that perhaps I need to plan a little less. Perhapsone of the personal foibles I mentioned at the start of this post is my compulsion to control the process too much.
I don’t mean to suggest that I’d be better off rushing at the easel in gay abandon, allowing my emotions to guide my brush andsurrendering to my creative urge without a thought for process. All right, I’m being just a touch sarcastic there. But I do believe that,although drawing and painting may well be primarily a ‘right brained’ activity, the best results come when the left and right sidesof our brains are working in harmony towards a common goal. Perhaps, though, in my eagerness to learn and progress,I’ve allowed my left, sequentially planning hemisphere to become a little too dominant and to obscure my righthemisphere’s gestalt-based view of the whole. Perhaps it took some frustrating experiences working in conditions I couldn’t completelycontrol to make me realise that.
I think that perhaps if there’s a lesson to take from this it’s not that planning is bad, but that we might all profit from looking athow we approach our work and at the methods and processes we use, from trying to see where our weak points might be and what we can do tocorrect them. Perhaps a particular method isn’t necessarily wrong or right in and of itself, but might be better suited to a particular individualand not to another. Perhaps any given method needs to be evaluated not in isolation, but in connection with our own individual personalitytraits. Perhaps the very characteristics that attract us to a given method are the very ones we need to be wary of, if there’s a chancethat we might become over-enamoured of them to the detriment of our work.
What do you think?
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Paul: I am always so happy to receive your messages and look forward to them. Your paintings are beautiful and each one clearly defines the subject. Although the poses are rather stiff, each one expresses life and inividuality. Michelle is very beautiful but I can see the distortion that you wrote about, particularly in the mouth. You you should try to go back and work on it some more. The stuggles that you are going through are similar to mine. I tend to get tunnel vision when working on a project and with the help of an artist friend, I am learning to loosen up and forgive myself. The key is to walk away from it from time to time to see it with fresh eyes when you approach it again, and yes, I agree that each of us is best suited to a particular method. I don’t think that you can over plan a portrait painting. I don’t do enough of it, and am trying to be more diciplined in the planning stages and at the same time loosening up on the execution.
I also would have been horrified if my easel or the model were moved after I started work on it!
Hello Paul:
Thanks for your courageous blogging of the process of learning to see and draw and paint realistically. I\’ve been a fan since you started your excellent site.
On reading your comments about planning, controlling and executing exactness, particularly with drawing (re: your comment about \”fastidious sight size measuring\”) – it has been my experience of late that regardless of the effort and energy exerted at the planning/drawing stage, once I am engulfed in the process of painting, my ability to see and react to my subject reveals innumerable mistakes in the drawing process. Rather than scorn at my lack of skill (after all, how absolutely exact must I be in the drawing stage), I appreciate that I am developing the ability to see the errors in my own work (something that is NOT easy to do) and embrace it as part of the process of mastering a skill. As long as the brush is still in my hand, I have the opportunity to alter and correct what I see and feel.
So, I couldn\’t agree more with your friend who suggests you \”forgive yourself.
Isn\’t your experience something most of us encounter when attempting to develop a solid skill in realistic drawing and painting?
The only difference is that you have the courage to share it with us all.
Hi Paul,
I think we all need to get out of our comfort zone sometimes, isn’t that how we progress? Your paintings are beautiful and very well executed but portraits are a very challenging subject. I don’t think any model can pose with the exactitude needed for the strict size method. As you have rightly said we do our best work when both left and right brain are in harmony, so maybe it is better to ‘let go’ and trust to intuition a little more. I am just a beginner at the sight size method and have usually drawn from a more right brain standpoint but I have found the sight size method to be an excellent method for training the eye. Once the eye has been trained ( and it can always do with a little more training no matter how long we have been painting) then surely that’s when the right brain can do its stuff. I could be wrong here but I think it could be quite liberating for you to loosen up a little. Hey it’s only paint and canvas after all! Having said that, I love your work and these portraits show great skill, i agree that your painting of Michele is a little off but it’s oil paint and can be corrected quite easily….let it dry and come back to it when you feel able to tackle it.
Hi Paul, First, just to say that I did read what you wrote, but I didn\’t read the other comments because I was so taken with your portrait of your wife, Michelle, that I didn\’t want to be influenced in my comments.
I think that going out of one\’s comfort zone may have its advantages, but I know that I paint much better in my comfort zone – at home -alone – in excellent spirits with Jesus! I would probably learn some techniques much sooner and so on, but discovering them is very exciting too.
The class paintings look to be just that – lots of correctness – and nice, but.
But the painting of your Michelle has so much more in it. For me, your love of her comes through in just my looking at the portrait. It seems you have treated her gently and yet clearly, firmly, lovingly, in her womanly beauty. The misplacement, as you say, of her mouth – well before I read your comment – I thought of her mouth as having just a touch of a smile like the Mona Lisa does. Her coloring is beautiful!! I say well done!!! Keep on, keeping on!!! God bless you both, Claudia-Marie USA
I think you did a terrific job on your class portrait sketches, Paul! Even with the lighting situations/pants with ants etc., you produced wonderfully expressive work. (did you work with an open palette in class?)
Class room situations are totally different in my opinion – you can’t control anything and therefore must be prepared with strong drawing skills -which you know you have -even without site size. However, moving your easel should have been forbidden! If he’s late – he suffers the consequences – not you!
Michelle’s portrait is a lovely attempt and hopefully just the first of many more accomplished paintings that you do of her. Her eyes and skin tone seem excellent to me…yea, Munsell!
You learned a valuable lesson with this attempt and I thank you for sharing it with us. (you are so brave and courageous with this blog!) I’m sure you will never make that mistake again – you’ll always use the mirror early on or flip the image as you’ve done here many times before you’re at the end stages and satisfied with the work.
I think it just takes experience – you have to paint more portraits to become really good at it – no matter how much planning! Even with an excellent drawing as a base, you still have to paint it! Of course, knowledge of HVC is invaluable at that point, but then comes facile use of the brush/palette knife! Once you have a good working technique/planning that works for you, then practice seems to be where improvement comes. Also, not to become too attached to your attempt is helpful – hard when it’s a loved one! You’ll either fix this one or start fresh! Paint more Paul and thanks for the excellent post!
(I haven’t done many portraits/figurative work, so I really shouldn’t even comment!)
Such in depth, intelligent and informative comments! Thanks very much for taking the time to contribute your thoughts.
Hi Olga. It hadn’t struck me that the poses are a bit stiff, but I think you’re right. They all do look kind of posed, don’t they? Any thoughts on posing models so they look less posed would be gratefully received!
I don’t think I’ll be going back to this portrait of Michelle now. I kind of like the idea of leaving it as it is, as a caution to my future self to make sure I get the basics right before I move on to the more interesting parts. Funnily enough, I’m working on a self portrait drawing at the moment and have had exactly the same problem. But at least this time I had the sense to stop as soon as I had the feeling that something was wrong, and go back and check the original relationships. It was the eyes this time.
I like the what you say about it being impossible to over-plan a portrait – but then of course, being an obsessive planner, I would 🙂 I think perhaps I need to allow myself enough flexibility in the process to be able to remember to pull back occasionally and see the big picture. I agree, going away and coming back with fresh eyes is certainly a help. Also, I’ve noticed lately that even when I can’t see that something is wrong, or at least can’t see where the mistake is, I can feel that something is wrong. I need to take more notice when that happens and step back.
Hi LA Colbeck,
I completely identify with your experience of having mistakes come in later no matter how much planning you do. Again, that’s something I often experience myself. In the portrait of Michelle, I know that I had a properly aligned facial structure to start with, because I was so careful about it. But somewhere later on I lost it. I think perhaps it was a combination of Michelle being in a slightly different position, and me pushing on regardless without adjusting what I’d already done, without relating things back to the whole. I’m not sure what the answer to that particular problem is yet, I’m still looking for it.
> I am developing the ability to see the errors in my own work…and embrace it as part of the process of mastering a skill.
you know, I think those are wise words. I must bear them in mind.
Hi Wendy,
>I don’t think any model can pose with the exactitude needed for the strict size method.
I know what you’re saying, but my first thought is that some great portrait painters worked sight size and did portraits – even of children. Sargent keeps coming up here, and he’s a good example. I wonder what it is about their method that differs from the strict adherence to sight size used on casts, still life subjects etc? I haven’t done a lot of portrait and figure work, but perhaps it’s just a slightly more loose application of the method together with a more practiced eye that does it.
For a while now I’ve been planning to do a night class at LARA so maybe I’ll find out there.
One more thing though, you seem to see the sight size method as a left brained approach. I can see why, given that it’s careful, controlled and sequential. But in fact I think it’s very much a right brained way of working, since it’s all about spatial awareness and the judging of relationships. That’s very much a right hemisphere way of processing information. The left hemisphere deals more in symbols, verbal representations and logical deduction. The internalised symbols we have of eyes, for example, or noses tend to override our perception and creep into our work, stopping us from seeing clearly. Sight size is all about seeing relationships as they really are. the right hemisphere is much better at that job.
>I could be wrong here but I think it could be quite liberating for you to loosen up a little.
You could very well be right. Unfortunately when I’ve tried that in the past I’ve tended to produce disasters, but you’ve also reminded me of this post I wrote a while back, dealing with a similar theme. It seems I’m doomed to repeat myself!
Thanks for the insightful comment.
Hi Caludia Marie, nice to see you again.
I think that you should certainly work in a way that comfortable with, at least most of the time. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that at all. I think I probably paint better when I’m comfortable too. But I do think that in this case, working in an unfamiliar situation that I couldn’t control did bring up some things that I might be able to learn from.
Thanks for your lovely comments about the painting of Michelle. I’m very happy to hear that some of that comes across.
Hi Marsha,
>did you work with an open palette in class?
Actually I meant to talk a bit about that in the post, but forgot. I did mix strings in the evening class, but on the fly at the beginning of the sessions, I didn’t have anything pre-mixed. I mixed up three or four values of a basic flesh colour, mostly burnt sienna, yellow ochre and flesh white, and a quick neutral value string. That seemed to be enough to get away with in practice. Mostly it was just three, dark, middle and light. Of course that was a much looser method than I’m used to using with pre-mixed Munsell strings but I don’t the pieces suffered particularly. I do think the one of Michelle benefited from the more careful control over values and chroma that the more comprehensive strings gave me though. Yea Munsell! 🙂
>you have to paint more portraits to become really good at it
No argument there, you’re absolutely right. I wish I had more time to do it, but unfortunately that’s in short supply at the moment. Right now I’m using what time I have to keep working on my drawing skills. Feeling the itch to get the palette out again though…
You are on the right track. The secret is to work and work hard. The talent is there but it depends on how dedication you give to it. Myself I am also doing some progress in portraits and nudes. My problem is that I do not have facilities to work on projects that I set myself, because every artist has his own ideas of how to set models, even in life-classes. Thanks.
Hi and thanks for sharing all your thoughts and processes. I am an artist and I also teach adults and one thing I have learnt over the years I have been teaching is that it is invaluable to take ourselves out of our comfort zone, regularly, but not too often that you cant reconnect to your own style/passion about painting. I have also learnt that as adults we have an inordinate amount of fear of making mistakes. I wonder if you have ever abandoned all planning/sizing and let your \”creative urge/emotion guide your brush\” as you say. Most people freeze up when asked to do this and cannot even begin and yet show utter disdain for abstract art etc. Yes the right and left side of the brain are both needed but both need to have workouts. Just as you meticulously plan to practice more left hand brain stuff you actually have to plan to practice right brain exercises too. I have a student for example since experimenting with left/right brain techniques has discovered she can draw better left-handed and has been right handed all her life! Keep going and keep growing is what I say. Put on some favourite music and just apply paint as you feel. You will be amazed what you have to break through to do it and what it will add next time you approach more \”serious work\” Your paintings are inspiring, they can only get better if you do both. Best wishes !
Brilliant, articulate writing. Thanks, again Paul. I’ve found that I lose my planar references by either forgetting or getting lazy about the ‘the one-eyed dance’ (continuous objective comparison from moving back and forth from the anchor-point). Thing is, you only ever get better by consistent practice. Here’s a phrase – The diamond cannot be polished without friction, not man perfected without trials. Keep it up.
Hi Ray, thanks for the comment.
>The secret is to work and work hard.
No argument there!
>The talent is there but it depends on how dedication you give to it.
Well, I’m not sure I believe in talent, at least not in the way that it’s usually thought of. You might start with an aptitude for something, but how far that’s developed determines much more how good you get. And since talent, whether it exists or not, isn’t something we have any control over, I think it’s best ignored. the fact that people who are convinced that they have no drawing ability at all can be taught to draw very well proves to me that far too much emphasis is placed on talent.
>because every artist has his own ideas of how to set models, even in life-classes.
Indeed. But the point of this post is that sometimes that can be a good thing. But just sometimes, and I really do understand your frustration after the experiences I had with this class! On the whole it was a very positive experience though.
Hi Christine,
>it is invaluable to take ourselves out of our comfort zone, regularly, but not too often that you cant reconnect to your own style/passion about painting.
Yes, I would absolutely agree with that. It’s good to be shaken up once in a while I think, but then perhaps there’s a need to withdraw to a more comfortable place to reflect and consolidate the lessons.
>Just as you meticulously plan to practice more left hand brain stuff you actually have to plan to practice right brain exercises too.
I think we have to be careful of making too simple a distinction between left and right hemisphere modes of processing, and to be wary of bending the science to fit our own preconceptions. I don’t think it helps us to do that, tempting as it is.
The popular view of the research done on right and left brain modes of processing is that the right brain is wholly emotional and free and the left logical. I don’t think that’s really the case, having read up quite a bit about the science behind it. For example, we process emotion – feel emotion – in both hemispheres. And left and right brain processing isn’t as clear cut as people imagine. Like most things, the degree of lateralisation – of distinct modes of processing being located in specific hemispheres – varies from person to person. The right hemisphere is usually where spatial processing takes place. That makes the sight size method very much a right-brained work-out since it’s all about visual comparison and relationships of the parts to the whole. It is often characterised as a dry and unemotional approach though.
In Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, Betty Edwards has this to say, in answer to the question “Why not just take a photograph”:
“I believe that one answer is that the purpose of realistic drawing is not simply to record data, but rather to record your unique perception – and, moreover, how you understand the thing you are drawing. By slowing down and closely observing something, personal expression and comprehension occur in ways that cannot occur simply by taking a snapshot.”
And also:
“…paradoxically, your careful observation and depiction of your subject give the viewer both the image of your subject and an insight into you. In the best sense, you have expressed yourself.”
>I have a student for example since experimenting with left/right brain techniques has discovered she can draw better left-handed and has been right handed all her life!
That’s really interesting. I wonder if she was always naturally left handed, or perhaps ambidextrous, and was made to work right handed when she was younger? Apparently that used to be quite common practice and make real problems for people.
Thanks for the thought provoking comment Christine – my favourite kind 🙂
Hi Shaun, good to hear from you, and thanks.
>’the one-eyed dance’
Brilliant. That’s now going to be my official term for it. I forget to do that too sometimes.
>The diamond cannot be polished without friction
Hah! I like that too. I’d prefer a bit less friction sometimes though!
Cheers – actually, the last part should read, ‘Nora man perfected without trials’.
See you soon.
No it shouldn’t. It should read ‘Nor a man perfected without trials.’
Hehe.
Hi Paul,
The best definition of talent I’ve ever come across is ‘the ability to persevere’, in which case you have it by the bucketful.
Thanks David 🙂
Sunday is looking good by the way. Shaun might be there too.
I loved reading this beautiful essay, Paul, and laughed out loud when you complained about the other students who wanted to give input about where the model should be. I think you are far too harsh with yourself, particularly with Michelle’s portrait, which is beautifully done. You sound as if you worked under tough classroom conditions with the others- I’m very impressed!
Incidentally, I find if I keep putting the head in a box with converging perspective lines as I paint, I can try to keep correcting the tendency to bring a head to full-face. One can also use the cartoonist’s trick of exaggering the angle of perspective – I don’t know if you own the first volume of the Walt Stanchfield books, but a drawing of what I’m talking about is on page 213. The idea is to give the work a more 3-dimensional effect in addition to the usual light/shadow tools of the artist. xoxoL
Thanks Linda.
you know, it hadn’t struck me that I was unconsciously pulling Michelle’s face round to a straight on view as I worked, but it seems really obvious to me now you mention it. you’ve done a lot of teaching – is that a common tendency?
I really like the idea of putting a perspective box around the head at the drawing stage too. It reminds of the Loomis heads practice I did awhile back. I’ll try it the next time I manage to persuade Michelle to sit for me. Christmas, I’m thinking 🙂
By the way, if anyone fancies coming to see the Glasgow Boys exibition at the RA on Sunday, David, Sean and I will be there at eleven. I’ll be the short balding bloke with his nose pressed up against the pictures. If anyone fancies meeting up with us, drop me a line at the email address below.
Paul, thanks for the most enlightening post, and sharing what must have been a VERY annoying experience. Congratulations for using it to learn something and pass it along.
You are absolutely right about the whole needing to be structured well for the parts to appear correct.
One idea you might want to think about when drawing a face in three-quarter view is related to perspective. This ws taught to me by a very successful illustrator, who is also a successful fine artist.
If you take a line through the eyes and extend it to an imaginary vanishing point in the background distance, and the line of the mouth and do the same, the face appears more natural if the mouth line is angled to intersect with the eye line at some distant vanishing point. If you look at Michelle’s portrait, her mouth is angled down, away from the line through the eyes.
I took the photo of her painting and made a slight adjustment in this angle in Photoshop. I don’t know how to upload images in this blog comment section, so I will send the images to you in an email to compare. I have never met your absolutely lovely wife, but the adjusted image seems more “natural” to me, and it’s not a huge change to make your already beautiful painting seem more accurate.
Hi Paul
Sorry to come so late to this. I can’t really offer advice about your portraits because I don’t paint them and I am not as advanced and accurate a drawer as you. They all look great – I can see the slight wonkiness in Michelle’s portrait but to me it doesn’t detract from the whole. You know her so you must find it harder to ignore.
I agree that taking yourself out of your comfort zone is a good way of trying to find the aspects of our work which we are weakest at. Without a teacher I think this is the only guide we have.
In your studio piece of Michelle how long do you spend planning the compostion and playing around with different arrangements?
Do you try to develop your compostional + design skills at the same time as your accuracy, or in seperate studies, or not at all?
For me I think that compostion and design are the most important things – more important than accuracy unless you want to make a living as a portratist.
I wondered what your thoughts are on this?
Reading your post I also think that maybe I focus on composition because its in my own comfort zone, and I need to work on my drawing skills which are not!
Anyway, thanks for the interesting post which prompted lots of good responses. Must get off the internet and force myself to do some Bargue now 😉
Hi Lisa,
The class was annoying and fun in equal measure. It’s been a long time since I worked from life in a studio. Tiring as it was to go there straight after work it was kind of exhilarating too. I certainly don’t regret doing it.
That’s an interesting point about perspective, very similar to Linda’s comment about the box. Certainly I’ll be trying to bear those things in mind more.
The main problem with the portrait of Michelle, though, is the centre line that should run down the middle of her face. It veers off to one side from her nose down – not good!
Hi Rosemary,
>You know her so you must find it harder to ignore.
Hah! Yes that’s true 🙂 But it’s more than that I think. Even if this was a portrait of someone I didn’t now, it would stand out to me.
There’s a funny thing happens to a drawing or a painting when everything is in place and the structure is sound. It seems to take on more life, as if it suddenly becomes more than the sum of it’s parts.I didn’t get that in this portrait, but of course there’ll be many more.
>Without a teacher I think this is the only guide we have.
That’s a really good point actually.
As far as planning goes, I didn’t do much with the portrait of Michelle, not on the painting itself, the composition. the planning I’m referring to was mostly in the setting up. Matching the exact value and colour of the locals of her skin, and mixing up strings of paint organised by value, hue and chroma.
I’ve done composition plans to an obsessive degree before, and have done none at all and just dived in. I’ve had good and bad results with both approaches. But I suspect that I just haven’t found the best way to do that yet. Actually, I’ve got a post in the works about that; A still life I planned to the nth degree and still abandoned half way through I was so disappointed with it 🙂 All will be revealed soon…
I absolutely need to work on composition. I haven’t figured out a good way to teach it to myself yet, so I think the thing to do is probably to start and then figure out the best to learn with method later – pretty much as I have with drawing and painting.
I see it like this: You have to find a path, and the only way to find it is to blunder along, keep reassessing, and repeat what works and stop doing what doesn’t. Then eventually you get to a point where you’ve learned how to learn that particular skill, and you can get on with teaching yourself. Kind of a long, drawn out process but it works for me.
I agree with you that design and composition are very important, but how important, relatively, they are to each of us will depend on our own individual goals. I’m wary of stating any absolutes when it comes to art. People may accuse me of ‘relativism’ which is a fashionable thing to do these days in some circles. But I think absolutism is just as fraught. If nothing else we should have learned as a civilisation by now that multiple perspectives are possible, and that the more tolerant we are of the perspectives of others the more civilised we become.
Oops, caught myself ranting a bit there. That wasn’t directed at you, I was just holding forth generally into the ether.
>must get off the internet and force myself to do some Bargue now 😉
haha! Me too.
Hi Paul
Thanks for getting back to me. I was wondering if you had any techniques regarding composition as I think there’s little to be found about this online or anywhere else for that matter. I like your compositions by the way – even in your studies there is a nice balance to them.
The only technique I have to work on compostion is to do little pencil copies of paintings or drawings I like with the intention of studying this element alone.
This is so true:
‘ You have to find a path, and the only way to find it is to blunder along, keep reassessing, and repeat what works and stop doing what doesn’t. Then eventually you get to a point where you’ve learned how to learn that particular skill, and you can get on with teaching yourself.’
In relation to your post, something else I am wondering about is the optimum time to spend on each session, and the amount of breaks to take. Its amazing how you spot mistakes more easily after a break. I’ve been breaking very frequently recently, like almost every 15 minutes or half an hour. At first I was mad at myself becuase I was just finding it really hard to concentrate and get into the ‘zone’, but then I found that actually I was spotting my errors more effectively and being a bit more objective about what I was doing. Have you had any experiences like this?
Thanks for your time – it’s much appreciated.
Rosemary
Hi Paul
Thanks for getting back to me. I was wondering if you had any techniques regarding composition as I think there’s little to be found about this online or anywhere else for that matter. I like your compositions by the way – even in your studies there is a nice balance to them.
The only technique I have to work on compostion is to do little pencil copies of paintings or drawings I like with the intention of studying this element alone.
This is so true:
‘You have to find a path, and the only way to find it is to blunder along, keep reassessing, and repeat what works and stop doing what doesn’t. Then eventually you get to a point where you’ve learned how to learn that particular skill, and you can get on with teaching yourself.’
In relation to your post, something else I am wondering about is the optimum time to spend on each session, and the amount of breaks to take. Its amazing how you spot mistakes more easily after a break. I’ve been breaking very frequently recently, like almost every 15 minutes or half an hour. At first I was mad at myself becuase I was just finding it really hard to concentrate and get into the ‘zone’, but then I found that actually I was spotting my errors more effectively and being a bit more objective about what I was doing. Have you had any experiences like this
Thanks for your time – it’s much appreciated.
Rosemary
Hi Rosemary,
I’ve got some resources saved somewhere regarding composition, I’ll see if I can dig them out – relevant books and such like that I haven’t read yet. ‘Creative Illustration’ by Loomis has an interesting chapter on composition which I’ll revisit too.
Generally, If I’m going to plan a composition I do thumbnails to try and work out the value balance mainly. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. I’m definitely feeling a post about composition coming on…
Regarding breaks, I don’t know, I leave it to the moment I suppose, and should probably take more than I do. I would guess that optimum time differs for all of us but I remember hearing somewhere that you should take a 5 minute break every 20 minutes. If I could only remember where.
I agree that taking a step back and getting away from it helps with spotting mistakes. changing environment works for me, going out into the garden for 5 minutes or something.
By the way, have you read Betty Edwards book? I’ve just been re-reading it and although it’s meant for beginners there’s some really interesting stuff in there. She has some strategies for getting onto the zone deliberately. Giving yourself some spatially oriented task that the left brain finds meaningless and gives up on is the basic idea, like tracing the contours of the wrinkles on the palm of your hand. I think what we call ‘the zone’ is actually the cognitive shift into right brain processing that she talks about in ‘Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain.’
Hi Paul
Ah yes – I had that book but I lent it to someone and never got it back – I will have to get another copy – thanks for reminding me!
Rosemary
hi paul, I often visit your website, I left a comment a while ago about going to Florence to learn Sight Size at the Charles Cecil school. It is so amazing, and excellent tuition and lectures on its history. you should look into it for yourself if you have the oppurtunity. No british schools are that good at teaching life painting I have found, although graduates of the Italian schools have started a school in Clapham called LARA, who teach sight size, I visited it the other day and its a very nice studio set up, with one model per student, and personal still life set up (which is yours to create) I thought Ide just link you an excample of a portrait I did from Sightsize in Italy in 3 days which is on my blog.
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Ouf8sA2b_ww/THJLDsV1P-I/AAAAAAAAAFw/JANbgWzRj-U/s1600/nestor.jpg
I definety suggest a visit!
Verity Birt
Hi Verity,
I remember you saying you were going over to Florence. Thanks very much for coming back and giving us an update.
Your portrait is a beautiful piece of work. I don’t know how you were painting before you went, but that’s a great recommendation for the Cecil school! It looks like you’ve benefited enormously from your time there. For ease of use here’s a direct link to Verity’s portrait of Nestor.
I’ve been thinking about attending the evening drawing classes at LARA for some time. I can’t do full time tuition because of the day job and money is still tight. But I’m hoping to do an evening figure drawing class there this spring.
Out of interest, did they give any classes in composition at The Charles Cecil School?
Verity, can you drop me an email please? I’d love to chat a bit more about your experiences in Florence if you don’t mind.
yes sure Paul, ill email you now, V
I found this account enthralling. I empathize with many of the issues you raised, and your account of the classes brought a big smile to my face!
I had not heard of sight size drawing and am intrigued by the challenges this brings in relation to figures and portraiture. I don\’t think I have ever had a model anywhere hold a pose well enough for a sight size approach, and I must admit, my dream is for an opportunity to paint someone able to sit and refined a pose accurately for more than a couple of hours. Over the years I have become so used to making do with rapidly changing subjects that I now realise that getting out of my own comfort zone entails me being forced to look long, hard and accurately at a subject. So thanks for bringing that to my attention!
Hi Gillian, thanks for popping in.
The thing about sight size is that it’s really a way of seeing. It tends to get connected in most people’s minds with a high level of accuracy, but it can be used in a more general, ‘big shape’ way too.
The key to sight size really is that it’s about the overall effect rather than the detail. You can work loosely with it if you like, or very tight.
But it does present problems if the sitter moves too much. A bit is ok, you can correct and it’s probably good practice, if a bit annoying sometimes! But when people take up basically an entirely new position – or someone moves your easel and changes your point of view – then you’re pretty much screwed, that’s true 🙂
Don’t forget that Sargent worked sight size and painted children from life. So it doesn’t have to be too rigorously applied as a method, and you still get all the benefits. Do let me know if you have a try with it. I’d recommend trying something simple first, a bit of fruit or something, just to try it out and see how it feels.
Drop me an email if you want some help with how to set up a simple exercise with it. It would be very interesting to try to use it with a digital picture…
none of us are perfect.It`s not the teacher`s job to be imposing his view but hopefully to facilitate some form of progress in the students work based on observation and discussion .Sight size is one of many imperfect quasi sciences that we can utilise in our hopefully never ending search . And having read various current texts on the matter its not bullet proof .The moving of the easel was atrocious I`M sorry about that …
the lighting was a mess .I have complained constantly about it .Vagueness is no less usefull than certainty and I have never taught certainty ,Well, Except that “the main mechanism of painting is the act of comparison” All said, classes are only as good as the people who walk through the door and I have always only been interested in the dialogue that takes place .It was in fact an immense pleasure sharing the process with you .We all live and learn . Brushes in hand
Hi Teach 🙂
Funny, I wondered if you might find this post somehow, even though I left the name of the college out deliberately. It allowed me more freedom to rant a little that way:)
>”It`s not the teacher`s job to be imposing his view but hopefully to facilitate some form of progress in the students work based on observation and discussion .”
I appreciate that point of view, it’s very laudable I think and that did happen for me. You brought some things into my awareness that I otherwise wouldn’t have been thinking about – particularly compositional elements which I’d be the first to agree is a weak point for me, something I needed to have my attention drawn to and also something I’m starting to try to address now. I think that was the best and most useful thing I got out of the 12 weeks.
The lighting, yes, what a nightmare. I remember you saying how frustrated you were with it. Whatever were they thinking of when they designed it? Not painting, that’s for sure.
>”Sight size is one of many imperfect quasi sciences that we can utilise in our hopefully never ending search .”
I agree about the never ending search. Sometimes I think the process of searching is the main reason for doing it when all is said and done, it’s what keep sit so interesting – and frustrating! I’ve always felt that if I ever thought I’d ‘arrived,’ that would be the time to hang up my brushes and quit because I’d have stopped growing.
I’m still not sure we’re on the same page about what sight size is though, and how it works. This is what I mean by sight size. There’s also a couple of good descriptions here of how Raeburn and Sargent used the method. Are we talking about the same thing?
As for it being imperfect, well, to me it’s just one of many possible approaches. I don’t have a kind of religious faith in it like some contemporary adherents seem to. I can see it having disadvantages depending on what you want to achieve. But I think it’s a very, very effective way to develop the ‘act of comparison,’ to strengthen our ability to judge shape, value, colour etc. to ‘learn to see’ if you like. It’s all about comparison, really. I don’t think I really understood what it had to teach me until I’d worked with it practically, at the easel, for quite a while.
>”It was in fact an immense pleasure sharing the process with you .”
Thank you. I enjoyed it too. My frustrations weren’t at all do with how you ran the class, I enjoyed learning with you (well maybe apart from the easel moving thing ;-)) I just found the lighting, especially, and the changes in the position of the model really difficult to deal with. But then, that was all part of me being out of my comfort zone, which is the point of the post really. Overall it was a very positive experience. If it wasn’t for the appalling lighting I’d have come back again.
thank you for the kind reply .I shall follow your leads on Raeburn and Sargent , with regards,”teach”
let`s throw the teacher thing out the window .I dont trawl the web looking at art work to become a better teacher . I am hunting for good figure painting to hopefully become a better painter and also because for me portrait painting is my biggest thrill.
I do not care what system or what level of knowledge is in a painting .whether it is painted with a cricket bat or a squirrells eyelash it has to reach out and grab you by the chest,spin you around and leave you with a peculiar mixture of delight, confusion and jealousy .The inexplicable to be looked at ..And your recent painting of Michelle does all these things and more .it is a cracker …..its beautifull poetry outweieghs all other considerations for me
Wow Allan, Thanks very much. I don’t know what to say. That means a tremendous amount to me coming from someone who understands painting as well as you do.
I’ll be walking with a lighter step today.
Hi Paul,
I’ve just discovered your blog and am having a blast going through it.
I am not as far along in my journey as you, but it is so wonderful to hear your thoughts and to see your work.
Hi Maneesh,
Thanks for commenting, that’s great to hear. I hope you’ll find something here that will help you along a little.