Update: Photo of Claire

My "undaunted" art friend from the United Kingdom http://rediscovering-art.blogspot.com/, left me a comment on my last entry. Thank you, thank you! You would think that I might share the photo that I was working from of my daughter Claire because I kept mentioning how much it looks like her. Duh. So here it is... What I have tried to do in order to better understand the placement of facial features, is work from whether photograph or the old master paintings such as the sketch I did of Frida Kahlo (July 3rd archive 2008). I discovered early on, that first--I do not like working from colored photos. I can't see the "lines" of the face and the true coloring throws me off. I guess that I would not do well working with a live model... Second---when I manipulate my photo in photoshop elements (version 6, and I am a big neophyte still having no idea what I am doing), I can change the colors and then go for the outline and shadows on the face much easier. Third---if I then sketch the face in my note book, I can then easily transfer the entire drawing or parts of it to my canvas using good old transfer paper (graphite paper). And well, for now anyway, that has served me well. So here is the original photo, the manipulated one, and my painting is just in the entry below (as it currently stand). I am painting the flesh tones from my memory rather than trying to get them perfect. That stresses me out too much and this work is representational anyway. I like working this way but it does take some time because each time I use photoshop, I seem to forget what filters I used and how to anchor the background etc.... One day I will go back to simply my own imagination.... Sigh

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