FB posting: Please put the images of your homework assignment in the “Portraits” folder on FB and title your posts: “Portraits Homework”. The weekly folders are on the right hand side of the FB page.

4th HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT

For the next two weeks we will be jumping into the portrait genre. Some trivia: I started my art career in 1977 after graduating college (with a BA in Art that was fairly useless) doing 10 minute portraits at local arts and crafts fairs, malls and at the NY State Fair. I set up a couple chairs, had an easel, people would stand in long lines to have their portraits done. I worked in colored pencil on 18x24” pastel paper. I guess I’ve always had to work fast and bold, not always by choice I think. I spent years doing fast portraits, some slower commissioned portraits too, from photos. Getting it “right” - the proportions, the relationship between all the facial attributes, was really important for training my eye to be accurate. I was not into any type of mild abstraction or interpretation in those days, just your basic realism - thats what my clients wanted.

Although my approach is looser now, getting the essence of the person’s face is still important (to me). I’m intrigued by paintings that can capture the person - without adding every little detail - not that there is anything wrong with that.

I have uploaded quite a few images in the “Portraits Inspiration” folder on FB, where you can get some ideas on how other artists handle portraits in many styles, from tight to loose. On FB page go to Photos>albums>Curated Portrait Photos or Portrait Inspiration.

Here are a few links that you may find interesting.

This article describes Camille Pryswodek’s approach to painting the figure outdoors. I took her very first workshop in the early 90’s, and she called portraits that were light on facial features “mudheads”. Camille studied with Henry Henche, the great colorist.

I also took a workshop from this talented lady, Karin Jurick, a daily painter. She did a series of 200 small portraits from criminal mugshots she found online. What a fantastic exercise. See her mugshots here.

This artist, Michael Iskowitz, used to have studio space near me when I rented. He did very creative, brilliant portraits of everyone in the building, including me. See if you can find it. I’d like to think I’m slightly more attractive than that, but who knows. Notice how creative he is with color. His values are spot on no matter what hue he uses.

Think about how you want to portray your subject. Do you want to add any additional information in the background that will give the viewer some information about the person - where they live, what makes them tick, some personality trait? Or leave the background non-descript, or something in between? Do you want to use realistic colors or colors of your choice (get the values right - squint!). You are free to modify anything about the image - add “clues” about your subject, create intriguing backgrounds, obscure parts of the face or body, etc. to express more about your impression of the subject. Since you don’t know the subjects, in most cases, create your own idea about who they are and what their personalities are like.

As always, explore! Use the techniques we learned in Loosen Up. Or if you lean more towards realism follow the photos more strictly, if that is your artistic goal. If you have imagined a story about someone that explains your choice of background or colors or whatever - feel free to share your story with the painting.

Heres where the images are located:
On the FB page: See Photos (on left) > Albums> Curated Portrait Photos (or Portrait Inspiration)

On the Google Drive Page the portrait photos are here:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1EB1eYlePN29gURHHbK7eiHQ5FE0ontlV?usp=sharing

Have fun!

PS - the paintings on this page were created by Marybeth McKenzie. The photo above right is one of many self portraits. I studied with her for about a year at the Art Students League in New York City. Her most memorable and frequent comment to me: “The head’s too big”.