Portrait in water mixable oils

This portrait is one of my recent favorites because I tried some new techniques and I can see a difference from previous portraits.

I started by drawing her on tracing paper. By doing this, I don’t have to worry about pencil lines and eraser marks on my canvas. To transfer the drawing, I placed carbon paper underneath the tracing paper and traced the drawing onto the canvas.

The first layer of paint included shades of purple and pink for her face, especially around the eyes. I added layers of paint on top of that to get the skin color right, and used a glazing technique to add the highlights around her eyes. This was all new to me because in the past I would try to get the skin color perfect in the first layer that goes down. By doing multiple layers, it gave her face more depth.

Next, I painted her hair and blocked in gray for her bows.

Her dress is black but I didn’t use a straight black paint; I mixed it using multiple colors to give it depth. To create the folders in her shoulders, I made the highlights drastic in the first layer. I let a couple of days pass until the paint was tacky and added more layers to blend it out.

I then painted the background and let it dry for a day or so. Notice the outline of her hair against the background looks flat.

So, I used a glazing technique to smudge the outline of her hair to the background.

Materials included Winsor & Newton Water Mixable oils, Master’s Touch 11x14 canvas, and Winsor & Newton Monarch Synthetic brushes of various shapes and sizes.

Oil paint can take weeks to dry, and up to 6 months to completely dry for framing. So between each layer of paint, I would wait a couple of days for it to get tacky to the touch before putting down the next layer.