meldrum art
Quick portraits
As far as a good likeness is concerned, I failed.
Maybe I captured her spirit instead, I guess I’ll never know.
I had to had forgotten my watercolours at home but luckily a friend had a spare set. They were very bright colours, Russian I believe. It was fun, I was out of my comfort zone.
Yesterday, I went to life drawing and I couldn’t paint to save my life. Today, I couldn’t put a brush stroke wrong, an over exaggeration maybe but it certainly felt so. What a difference a day makes.
I continue to practice my portraits as often as i can. This one I did this morning before meeting my Urban Sketcher friends at the The Maritime Museum here in Stockholm.
Painted on Saunders Waterford Fine Grain.
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Click the thumbnail below for full-sized image.
I am still practising my watercolour portrait painting techniques. This one took me a day to complete and I’m happy with it. It’s not perfect of course, not as far as I am concerned anyway.
I should be editing a film for YouTube, I will have to force myself from doing more portraits until I’ve completed the editing. The next Watercolour Journey episode by the way is from the Gaint’s Causeway in Northern Ireland.
Click the thumbnail below for full-sized image.
I continue to practice painting watercolour portraits. Like I said before I use Sktchy App (iPhone only) for my model source. Even though there is a lot of faults with this I am quite happy with it. It’s a journey, like everything else it takes time to become accomplised at anything and watercolour is a difficult technique so it’s gonna take a while before I can fell comfortable doing portraits. Please do not ask me to do a portrait, it would just stress me out. Ask next year maybe! 🙂
Size: 31 x 41 cm on Fabriano paper.
Yes, I am having fun practising my portraits, the reason for this is I can see a large improvement every time I paint a new one. I have been using portrait images downloaded from Sktchy App (iPhone) which is great for artists and self-obsessed selfie users who want a free portrait of themselves.
Painted on Saunders Waterford 26 x 36 cm
Click image below for full-sized watercolour.
I would love to just paint portraits everyday until I felt I had mastered them but there is always something that gets in the way. It’s not good to be so manic either, I can always try to be better at several things at the same time. My progress may not be as fast but at least I’ll be having more fun.
The model for this watercolour portrait was once again from Sktchy App.
If you would like to see a larger version please click the thumbnail below.
I don’t know how long I can keep this up? I want to paint a portrait every day for the foreseeable future so that I can improve in this area. The only problem is there are other projects that need to be taken care of too. I can juggle pretty good but dealing with my new art career is tricky.
I am happy enough with this portrait, I like the nose – that’s enough for me to like the painting. See, I am not too demanding on myself! I spent too much time fiddling with the shading so it’s not perfect but I know I will improve each time I do a portrait and that’s incentive enough for me.
Painted on Suanders Waterford CP 26 x 36 cm.
Click the image below if you would like to see the full- sized painting.
I have been trying really hard not to paint sail boats for a while now, it’s hard – I just love to paint them. The reason I am avoiding them is so that I can develop as a watercolour artist by painting other things that I am not used to and find difficult. Portraits are difficult, the one that’s featured here doesn’t resemble the original model very well. I wasn’t trying too get a perfect likeness, my goal is to master painting skin and building the facial form, I think creating a likeness will improve as I practice.
The model reference by the way was downloaded from the iPhone only Sktchy app. Why it’s only iPhone users who can use this service I do not know.
Click the thumbnail below to see the full-sized image
One of my first watercolours from 2012. I should try painting portraits, I painted so few when I think about it.