Blocking in the Features

Portrait Painting from a Photo Blocking in the Features
15 minutes
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Transcript

We're gonna start to describe the planes that sit on the big forms, so the smaller forms that sit on the bigger forms. And to do that I like to use the bright brushes, the square top brushes they make like nice chiseled strokes that can really carve out the different planes. And you're going to be looking for three tones for each feature. So there'll be like a darker side, a middle side and a lighter side based on the lighting structure of your painting. So that's what we're going to do and I'm going to start by working on one of the eyes and just sort of working out from there. What I'm actually going to do first is use a nice warm, dark color, some transparent red oxide, mixed with some base shadow color, and just restate the lines of the eyes with a nice dark, warm brown color.

Just to restate the lines, I've sort of crossed over lines as I'm going and I just want to reestablish the basic drawing element. And then I'm going to describe the forms on top of that. So I'm not using black, I'm just using a nice dark, warm color. And we'll talk more about the construction of the features as we go and there's also a special section in the essential skill section that really talks about the structure of the features. But for now, I'm just basically restating my line and getting ready to describe the forms. So if I look at the form of this cheek, for example, there's basically a slightly lower, darker underplaying moving to a Pinkie warm mid tone, and then the lightest sort of top plane.

So those are the three planes that I want to describe. And so far I've got like a light top plane, a pinky middle plane. And I just want to clarify those and sort of look at the shape that refine the shape as I go. I'm still working across the form bringing, bringing more clarity to the lightest top plane. And just taking me a minute to get the color right, I've mixed a little bit of pink, a little bit of the lizard permanent in with the base flesh color and a little bit of gray. And that's gotten it to where I want it to be.

And then the lower darker plain of that cheek has the dark warmer note that I'm just wiggling, wiggle stroke applying that so it has a nice soft edge and it rounds into that color. The color in the middle is the pinky or mid tone. So I'm using some a lizard, I'm sorry, actually some CAD red light mixed in with my base flesh color. There we go. And you can really look at the shapes of the forms really, you know, refine the shapes of the shadows and of the different planes. I'm seeing as I work on this that the shadow side here kind of comes forward just a little bit more and connects into that cheek.

Right around here and then it has a soft edge that I'm just gonna wiggle We will stroke along. Now with the color structure to the lighting. There's a lot of the time a cool note that comes right at the place where the lights meet the shadows. Right now this is a little overstated it looks to green but there is often a slightly cooler note right where the light meets the shadows. And so cool is really relative, it can be blue, it can be green, it can be gray, it just is a little bit cooler than what's next to it and I'm using my finger to soften that edge a little bit too. Okay, and then looking in the eye, I want to get the three planes for the form of the eyelid so the front plane of the lower eyelid is kind of dark and warm.

Then there's a lighter plane that comes in Through the side here and we get into the darkest plane to the left, which I've already kind of got in there. The white of the eye has a lighter side to the right. And it's fairly, it's darker than you think it's some a similar tone to the skin around it just gray hair. So there's a really common tendency to make the white of the eye way too light and that's going to make the eyes look really freaky. And you want to make sure that you get it as dark as it really is. And then the white of the eye on the left is way darker.

It's really subtle. And with the upper eyelid, there's again three planes. There's a light, middle plane, slightly darker plain to the right hand side. Kind of a middle tone and then darker into the left. So we get this whole plane really dark, and it kind of connects in to the darker side of the lower eyelid front plane. So that helps anchor the eye into the face.

With the eyebrows, you want to get different planes to the form of the eyebrows too. So the eyebrows don't just feel like lines like sitting, you know, drawn on they feel like they're wrapping around the form. And it's really nice to get this subtle, cool, like to scratch to get some hair texture, but there's a lighter, cooler plane right through the center area, right where the bend happens. And then as they round to this side, I've already got the warmer color in as I'm looking at At the plains, again, you can sort of refine the shapes, I'm noticing that the shadow just needs to come. It connects a little bit more to the eye. So I'm just going to wiggle, wiggle stroke down on that edge to kind of bring a little bit more of a connection.

Basically bring that I a little lower eyebrows a little lower. I'll just restate this line a little bit. And then in this nose area, there's a darker side plane, the lighter front plane and then the slightly warming darkening side of the nose and I think To begin with, I want to just darken this shadow a little bit more. So really looking at the tones. Actually, I'm jumping around a bit, but I also want to darken this pupil a little bit more. And I like the color of the side plane of the nose already and I like the color of this front plane, which is a little it's a middle tone and it's warmer.

I think that right now the highlight through the center of the nose is just feeling a little bit strong. And there's more of a gradual gradation from the mid tones into the lightest light. So I'm just gonna adjust that a little bit. Okay, with this front edge of the nose, there's a major common tendency to make this lined like a big, dark, horrible outline. Make sure that you haven't done that and make it like way lighter and softer than you think. In some cases on certain photos, you'll find that it's completely lost.

And you really don't even really see it at all. And the I'll fill it in like the I will put the nose in and just exactly the right place that it should be in. Yeah, and it'll look way better than if you have this dark outline. And so I'm moving through into the cheek, getting that darker underplayed of this cheek just like I did this one. Maybe I'll darken a little bit more through here. There's a certain darkening connection through that cheek into this shadow and going into the upper lip.

There's a little bit of a shadow shape at the back of the lip that helps describe Muscles at the back of the mouth that move the mouth and wiggling across the form so that it's not a linear note. It's really more of the form. And so with the planes of the upper lip, the upper lips getting darker as it rounds into the center line of the lips, and I'm using a lizard and permanent some black and some be shadow color. And whenever I do a dark like the darkest notes, I use extra oil. It makes the color more transparent and that's desirable. So using a little extra oil, getting the turning of that form downwards.

I'm cooling the color a little bit. You could do it with black, I'm doing it with blue, either would work, cooling the color a bit as it moves into the muscle target. The back of the mouth and actually a similar color will go in for that shadow. And looking at this upper lip, I want to describe the plains of the upper lip is well, there's a slightly lighter plane that comes out here. And there's that slightly. That's too strong.

I'll soften that out but a slightly lighter place where the bend occurs like here and I've put that in it's a little strong, I'm gonna kind of wiggle and lighten and soften some of those notes. You want to keep this soft edge and not to overstated you can also use the back of your brush and just scratch across the end. To create that perpendicular to the edge type of effect and it softens it and just sets it in nicely. I'm also just going to wiggle through here creating a little bit of a softer edge and operate a little bit of a lighter form right in here, the plane of the cheek rounds and darkens into this line. You know where the cheek is meeting the line there and then that lines a little bit lighter. That plane is just facing upwards a little bit more.

And same on the other side, there's an upward facing plane that's just a bit lighter right here. And then with the planes with the lower lip, as the lower lip rounds down, we get a little bit more color and it's a little bit darker. So I'm just gonna bring in slightly darker, slightly more saturated color to the turning of that form. I'm gonna wiggle across and lose the edge more here. And I'm actually going to darken and sharpen the edges just a little bit right here. And then I'll put the lighter center plane of the lower lip in which is the lightest, the lightest plain facing the light most directly, and it's a bit like a light pinkish color.

So we're just getting the forms and getting the planes and for each feature in the chin, there's that lighter top plane Here's a plane where it's warmer and darker as it rounds towards the shadow and I'm just doing this with some additional transparent red oxide mixed into the base flesh color. And jumping back up to the I, I want to refine the shape of this which is a shadow, just a little cool shadow and get the tear duct in the tear duct is an area that has a little bit of a red nose note to it. And it's a nice place to get a little pop of color. It gives it some life. So next I'm going to describe how to define the features more but bring your painting up to this stage, really focusing on three different tones for each feature to describe each plane and look for a color shift.

For each plane of the feature

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