A finished portrait is not always perfect.
It’s not unusual for a client to ask that something about a portrait be fixed. Usually just a minor adjustment.
On Cheri’s chin, I had portrayed the shapes and colors I saw in the reference photo. (The "BEFORE" picture on the left.) Cheri asked me to change that oval area on her chin. I don’t have an “egg” shape on my chin, she said. You can clearly see what she’s referring to. I was not happy with that area either.
Cheri's original reference photo. Do you see an egg shape on her chin?
We went back and forth in an email conversation with me asking questions about the shape of her chin because I didn’t have good reference photos. All I had were these. Some looked like she had a cleft chin. In others it looked pointed.
Cheri struggled to answer, it’s hard to describe the shape of a chin. She said:
“I just want the 'egg' look gone - and the yellowish color that kind of draws attention to 'the lump'. <LOL> I don't have a lump.”
She sent a few more reference photos, some of her as a young woman, others taken recently, 50 years later.
“Those are helpful”, I said. “Just a normal, rounded chin.”
Cheri replied, “LOL! Is that all I had to say? ‘Kevin, it’s just a normal rounded chin!’ ”
I shot back, “No, that’s NOT all you had to say (“normal rounded chin”) ! 😛 Normal rounded chins come in all different shapes.”
The photos Cheri sent were critical to seeing the shape of HER chin.
Cheri didn’t notice anything “off” about Larry’s chin, but I did. The bottom of his chin on the left, closest to Cheri’s face, looked too prominent. That would be an easy fix, just add a darker shadow to round it off at the bottom. I didn’t need more reference photos for that.
Before I made any of these changes, I scanned the artwork, and made the changes in Photoshop, so Cheri could see how it would look. On the original, I had built up the layers of colored pencil so thick that adding any additional color on top of them would just smear the existing pencil around. Artists who work with colored pencil will know what I mean. You can’t just “paint over it” like you can with acrylic or oil paintings. By carefully scraping away the top layers of pencil pigment with a sharp blade, I would be able to add one more layer, and if I did it just right, I would end up with the shapes and color I needed. I would have only one shot at that. Colored pencil is an unforgiving medium.
Cheri approved my Photoshop simulation, I made the changes on the original (the "AFTER" pic on the right), and the double portrait of Cheri and Larry was finished. Two months of work. In my next post I’ll show you the complete, finished artwork.
Double portrait of Cheri and Larry McNealy, in progress.
🎨 Prismacolor pencil and watercolor on “Felt Grey” Canson Mi-Teintes paper.
20 x 24 inches.
Comentários