Hi, this is Part Two of me walking through the five oil paintings that I made in my Painting 1 class with Professor Collier Parker. Last week, in Part 1, we talked though the first three painting assignments which were all different types of still life’s. But this week we will be talking about the last two paintings of the class. A one point perspective painting and a portrait painting.
One Point Perspective
For the one point perspective piece we set up around the third floor of Insalaco, and I picked a spot in the hallway. I’ve known myself to struggle with one point perspective in the past so I picked a spot with clear lines that I could reference. Even then I struggled a bit with sketching out the structure. I’ve always had the most trouble with finding the vanishing point of what I’m looking at. But I’m getting better with practice. This perspective piece was difficult, I’m not fully happy with the result but I’m glad for the experience. I had an easier time with the left side of the painting. I focused on simplifying, blocking out the shapes, and matching values. It was super interesting to study the effect of reflective light along the walls and floor. There were tones of red, yellow and blue along the hallway and I had to experiment to try and replicate the effect. The right side of the painting was definitely the weaker. I was having a lot of fun with he left, but the right was a bit intimidating. I wasn’t quite sure how to approach the windows and so I ended up avoiding it. I need to keep building my confidence with oils, but this was a great first step.
Portrait Panting
The last painting was a portrait of a live model that came and sat during our class. We had three classes to get as far as we could though our paintings. This was my first time doing a portrait, especially from a live model. It definitely had a different feel to it, it was a bit intimidating, but I like drawing people with pencil so I tried to apply the same mindset. Skin tone was definitely the most difficult aspect of the piece. I wasn’t sure how to approach it. I ended up looking up some techniques online, there’s so many different ways to go about it, but I picked one of the simpler layering techniques. Even then it was so difficult, I had never realized how many variations of color run along the skin. And each of those also help give the face shape and dimension.
Overall I had so much fun with both of these pieces. They turned out far from perfect, but i learned a lot from them. It was enlightening to realize how much variation in value and shape there is in spots when you take the time to study it. And if you can translate it into your art it can give your pieces so much more light. I’ve really enjoyed this painting class, its given me a new perspective to look at my art and designs from.