The Project
I use E’TAC paints for my airbrush work. It’s important you know this for it is the reason this project was undertaken at all.
I had been engaged in a lively discussion about mixing colors and painting portraits with transparent paints vs the opaque paint method used by many to great effect. One day I received an email from the E’TAC color cows asking that I do something to show my technique with color mixing and whatnot in regards to my work. Of course, when the color cows moo, you simply must agree.
The Subject
The trouble was that I didn’t have anything lined up on my schedule that would let me do this sort of demo. Sure, I could have once again borrowed the likeness of one of my DLTs, but I thought it might be best to branch out, if possible.
Fortunately, I had in my friends list on MySpace, an airbrusher and part-time model person with a good selection of photos on her profile. I found some pics I liked and then emailed her for permission to use them (when you have the opportunity to get permission…ALWAYS get it). She was very happy to oblige me, much to my relief.
Materials
Every art project begins with a number of items necessary for its completion. Here’s mine:
- Support: 16″ x 20″ (41cm x 51cm) Ampersand Gessobord
- Paint: E’TAC EFX
- Airbrushes: Iwata HP-SB+, Iwata HP-B+, Paasche H-F5
- Varnish: Golden Polymer Varnish
- Tools: White and Pink erasers, Eraser stick, Electric erasers, Electric eraser with Dremel abrasive stone, various graphite and colored pencils
- Misc: Acetate sheets, Neodymium magnets, Steel sheet, Artool Freehand Masks
The Gessoboard I prepped by putting 400-grit wet/dry sandpaper in a palm sander and carefully sanding the surface to reduce the texture.
Prep
With the image selected, I loaded it in Adobe Photoshop and started to tweak. (In case you’re wondering why I’m not posting the reference picture…I didn’t ask for permission to do that. Oops.) I found the background to be too busy, so I masked it all out. I then went searching through my files for images that were legal to use that might add a little something.
I found a pic of the Erechtheum that I liked. I blurred it make it seem distant, adjusted for the lighting to match the model, and shifted the color a bit to be a warmer color to match the model’s skin. Since the composition had taken a Grecian turn, I then blocked in a blue peplos or chiton on the shoulders to hide the much more modern bra straps.
I now created a new layer and sketched in the portrait. As I was going to project the image onto the painting support, I opted to do the first sketch in Photoshop for accuracy. Too often I have found that a subtle detail might be done wrong if going solely on the projected photograph with no hints.
I then printed out the sketch and projected that onto the support, which was now on my easel, backed with a large steel sheet. I traced the lines using colored pencils and very hard graphite pencils. The trick is to have the lines dark enough that you can see them, but light enough that they aren’t distracting in important parts of the finished work (like the middle of the face).
Let’s Start Painting
I usually like to start painting the background first. It gets me into the process in an area where I can screw up, and since the foreground subject of going to overlap the background, I like to think it makes blending easier.
The first order of business is the sky. Since this is a demo of using transparent paints, I don’t take any shortcuts. This is the general process I use to mix up the important base colors of the painting.
I start by squirting some white in my mixing cup. Although this will make the paint opaque, if I used it, in this case it serves only to lighten up my paint mix so that I know the hue is correct.
As usual for a blue sky, I start with a cyan…in this case Phthalocyanine Blue. Comparing against the reference, I can see that it needs to be a little more violet. While I could add some Magenta or Carbozole Violet, I feel that it would be too strong. Instead, I add some Blue Thunder which seems to do the trick.
Next, I mix up a batch of Phthalo Blue and Blue Thunder without the white. I then “reduce” the mix, i.e. add the EFX transparent base (without pigment), to make it more transparent and thus more controllable. Using this mix, I then spray in the sky sections freehand until they are the depth I want.
Finishing the Background
The rest of the background goes through a similar process, though not quite as exacting. I had wanted the blue to match up since it had to tie together with the model’s eyes and the dress. The rest only needs to be reasonably close, as I know that I’m going to be making corrections later in the process.
The lit part of the structure was sprayed with a very light ochre mix. It pretty much just adds a warmth to the columns without making a huge color shift.
Next was the purple trim, followed by a gray that I used for both shadows and starting to bring out some of the detail in the front of the structure. This is something that beginning artists forget to be mindful of — that it’s the balance of dark and light that create highlights and shadows. If you build up your tones instead of trying to get them perfect right off the bat, you can create a work whose transitions are more organic and less harsh.
Show Me Some Skin
Now it starts to get really fun as we begin work on the model herself.
The key here is to make a good base color. Since the model’s skin tone is going to be such a large component of the painting, we need to create a tone which we can modify to various effects later. The reason for this is if the base tone is consistent throughout the piece, then when we mix a different color based on that, we will still have a good blend without unnatural transitions.
I chose as my reference color, a tone in the middle of the forehead. It wasn’t so light that I might not get the hue correct, but neither was it so dark that I might miss some subtleties. The process is pretty much the same as when I did the blue for the sky, but a little more exacting as this was perhaps the most important mix of the painting. I took my time with it.
In the end, I ended up with a mix of 12-parts Arylide Yellow, 2-parts Naphthol Red, 2-parts C5 (a personal mix of Phthalo Blue reduced 1:5 for greater mixing control), and 1-part Azo Orange. Since I will be building up the tones slowly, I reduce the mix down 1:7.
Using the fresh skin mix, you proceed to basically paint a monochrome version of the portrait. You slowly build up colors, you follow the contours you put in the sketch. What you want to end up with is a rather light version of the face done in the face skin tone.
Since this is being done with transparent paints, the key here is patience. Don’t try to make the darks too dark too soon. You will have at least two more sessions over the entire face, maybe a few more than that. You are looking to build up colors slowly. By doing this, you add a depth and translucency to the skin that isn’t there if you just bull your way through.
It’s also important to pay attention to things like hands. They are no less important than the face, and no less deserving of care and attention. Because of issue of make-up or tanning exposure, you might have to make a different base mix for hands or other parts of the body. Fortunately, the tones were close enough that I could simply deal with the hand with the base skin tone.
During all of this, and throughout the process of evolving this picture, I’m using my array of erasers to modify and/or correct the paint I have already applied. You can really only use an eraser technique with paints (and largely, supports) that are agreeable to the process. A major factor in my choice of the E’TAC EFX line (over, say, the Private Stock line) is that it is erasable. This allows you to apply subtle corrections in tone. You can smooth out some of the paint-overlap blotchiness that is all but inevitable when using transparents. It also gives you the ability to lighten an area without having to worry about the dreaded “blue shift” that comes when you try lightening an area with opaque paints.
From this point forward, the keen observer will see that I’m not just laying down paint, but also modifying sections with erasure. Didn’t want to catch you off-guard on that technique. I mention it because I care.
CJ, You Block-Head
In this stage I’m still blocking in areas. I like to get the support covered (or mostly covered) with paint early on so that the values of my colors stay correct. A major problem when painting on a support is that the color of the support skews how you are perceiving color. When painting on white, the colors you apply will look dark, often too dark, until all the other elements of the piece have been added. Inevitably, your “too dark” color is now too light. By taking all of that background color away, I can more easily get the colors and tones I want.
I know a lot of people like to work on the eyes first. I sort of would like to as well, but since the eyes are all 3-d and all, I prefer to get the underpainting around them done first so that overspray doesn’t become a distraction later. After a while, though, looking at those blank spaces where eyes should be drives me nuts and I have to fill them in. Irises first, then pupils. Usually I don’t even worry about lashes until the late stages of a painting, but these were so lush that I had to block them in.
With that done, I continued coloring in the board (ha…you thought learning how to color inside the lines was silly), added some shadows, put in the ring, and added the first blush of a VERY transparent red to the lips and nails.
A Technique Interlude
Now protecting the cheek, this piece of acetate protected the fingers when the column shadow background was painted. You are allowed to re-use masks.
Masking is something that just about every airbrusher has to become familiar with, if not proficient. By its very nature, an airbrush sends out a fog of pigment, some of which is bound to land where you would prefer it didn’t. This is where masking comes in.
For the most part, I prefer to paint freehand. It requires that I maintain control, and that’s something that my ego seems to want me to do. I use masks pretty much only when I’m having to deal with a large area that is adjacent to one that I need to keep clean, or when I need to refine an edge.
I generally prefer to use freehand masks as they give me a lot of freedom, but what I want to show here is how I do area masking. If you’ve airbrushed for any time at all, you’ve heard about frisket and frisketing. This generally refers to a polymer sheet coated with a repositional adhesive that you can apply to a work, cut out your mask (carefully), shoot paint, and then remove the mask without leaving behind any residue or damaging the work where the mask was applied. For a variety of reasons, in the U.S. at present, this product cannot be found in stores. What is currently on the market isn’t up to the quality it used to be.
The closer the magnets are to the mask edge, the sharper the edge will be.
To save myself the grief of dealing with this sub-par product, I’ve opted instead to use acetate sheets and magnets. I buy pads of acetate (not mylar or similar plastic…acetate cuts easier) and place a sheet of the film on my work. Using a very fine-tipped marker, I trace the area I want to mask. I then remove the sheet and score it with a sharp craft knife. With acetate, scoring followed by bending back-and-forth on the score line, yields a very nice mask. I then attach the mask to the piece with magnets, shoot paint, and then remove the magnets and the mask. Easy.
A note about the magnets. In the photo, you can see that I’ve epoxied a nut to each strong neodymium disk magnet, and threaded bolts into the nuts. This is because of the strength of these magnets. They can be tough to pull apart. The bolt gives me more leverage so the task is no longer onerous.
Word of warning when using this technique or using handheld masks: make certain you don’t have any paint solvent on them (the solvent for EFX paints is water). Nasty surprises happen when you have a drop of solvent on a mask and you touch that onto your painting. Don’t say I didn’t warn ya.
The Magic of Art: Patience
At this point, I think we can all agree that the painting is wanting. It’s not clear that it’s ever going to look like anything good. I think of this as the fun part because I know the steps I have to take to get to where I’m going even though it looks pretty bad. Now it’s just a constant application of small refinements that will eventually add up to a satisfying whole.
Something that I like to do for portraits when the reference has enough detail, is put in some skin pores. Now, with the underpainting done, is the perfect time to start. If you make a mistake, subsequent coats of paint will cover it up. I use a Dremel abrasive point in a battery-powered electric eraser. DON’T use a Dremel tool (or similar high-rpm tool) — you will damage your painting. The electric eraser lets you go slow and careful. Making small circle-like motions, I indicate the pores where the right-hand cheek and the nose transition from light to shadow.
Using erasers and a craft knife with a curved blade, I add texture to the skin, especially on the lips and around the eyes.
Returning to my skin base, I darken it with a mix of Orange and Phthalo Blue, shading a bit toward the orange to warm up the tone a bit. I then work the face and hand again like I did with the underpainting. I concentrate on the shadow areas, plus I add the eyebrows (finally). I also make another transparent red mix with a touch of green to darken it and use it where I need to add warmth.
It is now easy to see that the painting might actually turn out to be a success. Now it’s just doing the steps over and over, refining areas with transparent colors, using masks to sharpen a few key edges, using erasers to modify tones and control shadows, and just generally feeling like a painter.
Like many, I do tend to leave the hair for last. While I work one it’s general shading while I address the rest of the portrait, for the most part I leave it be. Now that we are in the home stretch, I have to give it more attention.
Hair can be a tricky proposition when you haven’t done it a lot. Mostly it’s about establishing general shapes of color, going in with an eraser and knife to throw in light strands, using the airbrush to put in some dark strands, and so forth. You don’t want to put in every single hair…mostly you are just creating the illusion that you did. A major help is adding a few wispy strands at the edge here or there. It makes it all seem more real.
End game
Finally, the time comes when you’ve done just about all the damage you can. You’ve put in the final shadows. You’ve tweaked about everything you can think of. You even fixed that area above the left-side eye lash that you messed up when you were detailing the eye lashes.
Note to beginners: airbrushing is a constant series of events where you will say to yourself, “Great! Now how am I going to fix THAT?!?” It gets easier with experience.
There comes a point when it’s done and all you can do is try to take a GOOD picture and color-correct it as best as you can.
The final steps were me signing it (in case you’re wondering, I sign it in pencil and then use a very fine brush to paint over it), and then giving it a lot of very light coats of varnish.
Portrait completed and color corrected
Closing Thoughts
I know people wonder how long something like this takes. It not easy for me to say as I don’t really clock myself, but my best guestimate is about 30 hours. I’m happy with how this came out. I prefer for my portraits to approach a photographic look, but still look like they are a painting.
I wish I could have taken a great photograph of this painting, but despite my best efforts, the digital version is but a shadow of the actual painting.
I very much have to give major thanks to Holly Dowden, for letting me use her likeness. Her pleasure over the final results more than exceeded my expectations. It’s good when it works.
And I’ll leave you with a little YouTube video of how this painting progressed. You might spot some things with the changing images that you might have missed with the stills. Also (a friend pointed this out to me) since Holly was my inspiration, or Muse, for this piece, her appearance in the video is sort of like a Muse slowly taking form to be visible in our realm.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ns8jM66ceoM
