A portrait of Genevieve
Ninja April 25th, 2008
A year ago, I met this girl at a birthday dinner. Her name was Genevieve.
Genevieve’s a photographer’s assistant, so I’ve seen her again at 2 different weddings (and the most recent one I attended on April 5th). After talking to her, I was shocked to find out that she doesn’t realize just how beautiful she is. She’s quite down on herself because her mum is a such stunner, and she feels she takes after her dad. Which is complete rubbish. She’s got these huge eyes framed with thick lashes, but hides them (and her face) behind long strands of hair. All the things she claims are her flaws, I think just make her even more lovely.
With her permission, I painted her portrait. And here are the steps.
Oh, haha, before we start, I should probably note that I only have about 10 acrylic paintings under my belt, and that I really just sort of feel each one out. It’s a learning process for me, and each time, I try something new.
I started with a pencil sketch on pine. Unfortunately, most of the time that I did see Genevieve during the wedding, she was either looking down and changing lenses or hiding behind a camera.
I don’t think I did Genevieve justice with this sketch. You’d have to see her in person. She glows.
Then I added a little bit of white gesso to blend the pencil.
I blocked out the highlights with the white gesso and gave her face a wash of thinned down white gesso. Afterwards, I put down a layer of clear gesso to give the wood some tooth.
The clear gesso smeared some of the pencil, tinting the wood this ugly, murky shade of grey. I had no choice but to sand that section off. After the wood was clean, I applied another layer of clear gesso to the sanded area.
I then blocked in some of the shadows with Payne’s grey.
I built up layers of Payne’s grey and Raw umber to fill out her hair (pure black would have flattened out the image too much).
I used tea for the washes on her face to add warmth and color.
Then I used coffee to deepen the color and add more depth to her face.
Her lips are a blend of Cadmium red, Yellow ochre, Thio violet, and white gesso.
Her hair looked too faded and washed out, so I added more layers of Payne’s grey and Raw umber. I also overlaid washes of a Payne grey/Raw umber mix to the hair’s highlights to tone them down a bit.
Well, there you have it. If you’ve got any painting tips, feel free to share them in the comments.
Happy painting,
Ninja ^___^
