Noah’s guitar continued

Tagged: children boy, figures, guitar, Leslie Lee, oils, portrait

Category: Painting processes

I’ve started another painting in my class with Gabriel Lipper so I’m not moving along with Noah’s Guitar as fast as I might, but here’s the latest progress:

I think this is where I left off in my last post – still trying to get the rubber out of that guitar neck…

Catching the age of a child is really tricky. Noah might look like this when he’s about 13, but now he’s not quite ten.

There’s something about the angle of his head that isn’t right but I can’t quite figure it out.

SOooo’ I can muck around for hours trying to “find” him (and hone my drawing/painting skills, yes)  OR I can do what a purist would call “cheating” and I call a means to an end. I suspect this is done more than most painters will admit but I will share it with you rather than pretend I’m an ace at portraiture.
Here’s what I did: I measured the head in the painting (6 1/2″). Then I opened the reference image in my computer and cropped the photo down to just the head- crown to chin. Then I printed the image choosing the size of 61/2″. Now I have a photo I can lay over the painting and see where I have gone astray.  Watch the video:

Ah HA! the reason he looks older is because I’ve made his features too small! And, I’ve made my classic mistake once again of making the right eye too low. That’s why the angle of the head looked off.

Ok- I’ve got this photo so why not rub some charcoal on the back and transfer the position of the features right on to the painting?  Who’s to know? Who cares? Not me and hopefully not you.

Now this looks more like the photo – with plenty of room for my interpretation or “style”.