Saturday, January 19, 2008

First Painting > Correcting the eyes

I spent this week immersed in first painting, and trying to recapture the drawing lost during big form modelling. The cast's right eye was beginning to drift away from the centre. At first the best solution seemed to be to paint over the entire eye and then repaint it again rather than trying to move tiny shapes one at a time. However, after measuring against the other eye, the fix required was in the smaller shapes, beginning with the lower lid. I just had to rotate downward from the right corner of the eye to put it more on a slant and make the eyeball itself narrow. It's now in a better position relative to the left eye of the cast (or the right eye in the photograph).

Other things to work on: temperature correction. I haven't been mixing enough raw umber into the mix. The face is looking bluish. The neck is the right neutral value.... Here's the lesson to be learned. As a tint, ivory black is more powerful than raw umber. To keep a value neutral, there has to be more raw umber in it than black, otherwise the black dominates and gives the colour a cool temperature.

I also must work on the forms on the face and not sculpt before first putting in the planes of the form (see nose). I will remember that the chin itself has about 5 planes. These should be placed first...



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