Peaches and Cream Portrait Study, 8x10", oil on canvas, Jessica Libor 2012

At Ellen Cooper’s portrait class last week, we completed the first portrait.  For me, this was two sittings, 3 hours each.  The model had the most wonderful, elegant profile, and flawless skin, the overall effect being that of an English noblewoman painted so frequently by John Singer Sargent.

Although my painting is no Sargent, I tried to capture the loveliness of her glowing skin and the attitude of her profile.

Refuge, oil and silver leaf on linen, 20"x24", Jessica Libor 2011

I completed this painting about a month ago, but wanted to wait until I had a good image to share before posting about it.  It’s called “Refuge”, and is oil and silver leaf on linen, at 18″X20 inches in dimension.  It’s a painting of a friend, like most of my work, and something  I really enjoyed working on.  If you’re interested in collecting it, see more details on my website www.jessicalibor.com, or if you’re interested in viewing it, email me and we can work something out.  Enjoy!

Refuge (detail), oil and silver leaf on linen, Jessica Libor 2011

Maria (unfinished) by Joshua LaRock, during the window shading stage over top of ebauche

This is the stage in the painting where it all starts to come together.  In part six of this series of posts on how to paint like the masters, we left off when finishing the ebauche, a thin layer of paint and turpinoid with a few drops of oil mixed in, to set the tone of the painting.

Today, we will address layer two, using a thicker coat of paint, mixed with retouch varnish and oil (either poppy, walnut of linseed).  Later, we’ll discuss the glazing.

Start out by scumbling retouch varnish or oil over the ebauche.  The brings the full color to life again.  When choosing how to mix your lights, keep in mind that titanium white is stronger and colder, while flake white is more transparent and warmer.

Window shading is step two of painting in the classical 19th century French academic method.  They call it that because it is like pulling a shade down on a window, working in full detail from the top to the bottom of the canvas.  Finishing the painting is the goal for this stage.  Watch your model carefully for subsurface scattering–when light passes through and reflects inside the skin, like your hand in front of a flashlight.  Places common to seeing subsurface scattering are under the eyelids, the ears, the nose and hands.  Anywhere where your skin is thinner and more blood comes to the surface, you will see this subtle glowing effect.

After the window shading layer dries, you should have a completed painting.  If you would like to deepen the shadows more or add more transparency to the painting, consider a third layer, by glazing and scumbling.  Check out the detail from John Waterhouse’s Flora and the Zephyrs, where he used many layers of glaze to achieve a glowing look to her skin, fabric and roses.

Detail from Flora and the Zephyrs by John Waterhouse

Glazing: dark, thinned paint over lighter paint

Scumbling: Light paint, thicker and more opaque, over dark paint

In order to glaze and scumble, the painting must be completely dry, otherwise you risk rubbing out all your hard work.

To make something look glowing like oranges in a still life, glazing is the way to go.  If something looks transparent, paint it with transparent layers.  For the glazing layer, use GamVar, made by Gamblin, with a sponge brush.

Minneolas, by Joshua LaRock, oil on linen, 2009

That’s the final layer.  Congratulations on learning how to paint like the masters!

Homebound, by Steven Assael, oil on canvas, 60"x72"

Last year, I attended a visiting artist lecture at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, where Steven Assael, a New York native artist, was the guest speaker.

I was electrified at his presentation, and sat eagerly forward on my chair throughout the entire slideshow.  Seeing his work blown up large in a darkened theatre brought a new intensity to it.

D, oil on canvas, 62.5x92.5 inches, by Steven Assael 1998

What struck me about Steven’s work was the emotional pull of it.  In each of his characters that he paints, it is as if he put thier very soul into the image.  He is unflinching in depicting the relationship of the sitter and the painter, and lets you in to see the vulnerability and inner workings of his subjects.

There is also a drama, a sweet strain of sadness and mystery that runs through his work.  It seems as if he purposefully chooses unusual subjects physically, so that through his paintings he can give them a dignity and humanity that many people overlook.

Drawing by Steven Assael

After the lecture, I spoke to Mr. Assael about his work.  He was truly one of the kindest artists I’ve ever met, with a humility and quiet gravity to him, much like the work he produces.  It struck me how much you can tell about an artist by simply the work that he or she does.  In most cases, you are very much what you paint, for it comes out of the deepest place in your soul.

Nicole and James, oil on canvas, by Steven Assael, 32x20 inches, 2005

For more information about Steven Assael, check out this documentary on his work here.

Almost-completed Ebauche stage by Joshua LaRock 2011

This post will continue our journey we began several posts ago, picking up where we left off at the last stage of rendering the drawing.  We are beginning this post with the assumption that you have in front of you a canvas with the transferred drawing on it, the very correct drawing that you’ve been working so hard on!

These are notes that I am sharing with you again from that particularly helpful workshop led by Joshua LaRock that I took at the Grand Central Academy of Art this past summer.

I remember when this day came at last, it was the beginning of the second week, and a Monday.  I was so excited to begin painting!  However, the teacher lectured for a while before we could begin…which was exactly what most of us needed.  I gained a wealth of information, without which my painting would not have improved.

We began the morning with some basic definitions, and built from there.

The Ebauche: Layer 1 of paint, a thinned down value study with mostly turpenoid and a few drops of oil.

Beginning the Ebauche, by Joshua LaRock 2011

Value: the lightness or darkness

Hue:  Color (red, yellow, green, blue)

Chroma: the intensity relative to neutral (gray)

All skintones are a mixture of yellow and red.

The plane most perpendicular (most facing) the light is the most chromatic (the most color, ignoring the hightlights).  As a form turns away from the light, the color gets darker in value and less in chroma.  The highest chromatic (color intense) colors are straight from the tube.  The hightest chroma paints are the cadmium colors.  When painting shadows, remember that black is actually a very dark blue.  On a one color object, keep the HUE (pure color) at all costs, no matter how light or dark things get.

Mandarins, 11″x14″, Joshua LaRock 2009

When setting up the pallete, try to stay organized.  Your pallette is a reflection of your mind.  Start out to the left with the yellows, then go to the reds, then the greens, and lastly blues.  Below is a list of the exact paints we used for the full pallette, in order of how they should be laid out on the pallette.

1. White

2. Lemon Yellow

3. Cadmium Yellow

4. Naples Yellow

5. Yellow Ochre

6. Raw Sienna

7. Raw Umber

8. Cadmium Orange

9. Cadmium Red

10. Venetian Red

11. Alizarin Crimson

12. Burnt Umber

13. White

14. Cadmium Green

15. Sap Green

16. Viridian Green

17. Cerulean Blue

18. Ultramarine Blue

19. Cobalt Blue

20. Violet (Dioxazine Purple)

21. Ivory Black

22. VanDyke Brown

25% Raw umber, 25% burnt sienna, and 50% black make a perfect neutral, that you can make lighter or darker with white.

As far as a medium when you are painting, I personally use Walnut oil, because it’s so environmentally healthy you could theoretically eat it and be fine.  However, the traditional method is to use linseed oil or poppy oil to mix with the paint to make it more buttery.  Poppy oil doesn’t yellow as much as linseed oil, however.

Either way you go, you DO NOT need to use an oil at this point while doing the traditional Ebauche (underpainting).  If you use too much oil with your paint at this point, then in subsequent layers, your paint will bead up.  When doing the Ebauche, use paint thinner to thin the paint, or an odorless turpenoid (natural substitute for turpentine).

When beginning painting the Ebauche, keep in mind that it is to get the overall general effect of the painting, with colors, values and feel of the work.  Don’t lose your drawing at this stage.  You can start correcting your drawing if needed.  When you paint a dark over a light, you get a chromatic rise–this is what happens when you glaze.  So overall, your ebauche should be a little lighter in value than what you want your painting to look like at the end, if you’d like to glaze over it.

Start painting the ebauche with the lights, the highest in chroma and value (for instance, typically the nose and forhead), and go darker in value and lower in chroma in the shadow from there.

Mix up a separate mixture for the shadows, and use a separate brush to keep the painting as clean as possible.

Also, mix up a separate mixture for the hair.

Protect the hight value, high chroma parts of the painting!  Get all the lights and darks established before going into detail.  For example, do a section on the forehead, side of cheek and shadow and hair, then do the rest of the face, using those sections as keys of light or darkness on the form.

Sometimes, when two complementary colors are set next to each other, they both appear brighter.  This is a similar optical effect to simultaneous contrast.  Don’t let your eyes deieve you!

Think again of sculpting, same as the drawing!  You want the picture to leap out of the canvas into life.

The legendary William Adolphe Bouguereau painted in for layers, and this was the first.  Only three more to go!  Below, check out his unfinished painting, where you can clearly see the ebauche stage showing through.

Unfinished painting by Bouguereau

Step 1, Daughter of Eve, Jessica Libor 2012

I started out the painting by sketching it out on the canvas mounted on board.  Next, I went over the entire canvas with a sepia tone (mixed with turpenoid)  to get rid of the white.  After that layer dried, I applied silver leaf over specific places in the painting that  I wanted to shine, such as the sky between the branches, and the necklace on the figure.

Next I began painting the figure and sky, going over the colors in blocks and laying in the correct tones.

Step 2, Daughter of Eve (unfinished), oil on canvas with silver leaf, Jessica Libor 2012

From there, I really concentrated on the skin tones, thinking of the classical way of painting flesh, and painting what I saw, not what  I thought looked right.  A lot of times our eyes deceive us, and we have to trust our minds instead.

I’ve been working on this piece and a few others nonstop for the past week, trying to wrap up a portfolio for a scholarship from New York Academy of Art.  There have been some late nights (or rather, mornings!) painting in the studio this week!  Next post, I’ll share another painting I’ve been working on.  Until then!

Step 3, "Daughter of Eve" unfinished, oil and silver leaf on canvas board, Jessica Libor 2012

Still from video Jessica Libor Artist Interview 2012

Hello friends!  I am SO excited to bring to you a short video in which I explain what I’m working on and what my art is about.  This was made yesterday, so it’s quite current.  Click the link below to watch the video:

Jessica Libor Interview 2012

I’ll be sharing more soon about the experience of shooting the video.

Many thanks to Andrew Ray of Lightworks Films for an amazingly fast, professional and creative job well done!

Robert Lange Studios Fine Art Gallery

Many of the artists represented are graduates of the New York Academy of Art,  the Florence Academy of Art, or have otherwise dedicated their time and resources to refining their craft.

The gallery owners are welcoming, informal, quirky and wildly successful in running the gallery, and were also instrumental in the popular blog Women Painting Women.  Take a look at some of the emerging and established artists that they have featured on the blog.  And don’t forget to take a look at the original site!

The Black Dress IV, by Tina Spratt, oil on linen, 26"x26"

Sudden Glance, by Maria Kreyn, oil on canvas

Queen Anne's Lace, by Andrea Kowch, acrylic on canvas, 24"x30"

Shelter by Nadia Lazizi, oil on linen, 24"x28"

In Her Thoughts, by Michelle Dunaway, oil on linen, 20"x30"

Under the Apple Tree, by Adrienne Stein, oil on mahogany, 28"x40"

The Crowning of Nightfall, by Melissa Forman, oil on panel, 14"x16"

Lisa, by Rebecca Campbell, oil on canvas, 2006

Portrait of Emma, by Kate Sammons, oil on panel, 11"x14"

Adrienne Stein

"Antique" by Megan Byrne, Angel Academy of Art

While I was taking this workshop at GCA, I was ready to be done with drawing at this point.  I wanted to get to the fun part…painting!  There’s something so freeing and satisfying about the brush tip making marks on your canvas, and the ability to manipulate it.  However, I disciplined myself to stay on task one more day, and was surprised at how much my drawing developed in just one day of adding details.

As you work on rendering the correct values for the shadow shapes, remember that there should never be a harsh line.

At this point, you’re allowed to think about reflected light, like the kind you may see underneath the chin, or on the side of the nose, or above the eyes right below the eyebrows.  Reflected light helps support the volume you already created with your lights and darks.  Once you pass the terminator (the point where the form turns away completely from the light), all light in the shadow comes from reflected light.  This is particularly helpful to know if painting, when the reflected light may be a different color tint than the direct form light (for instance, the form light may be coming from a lamp, and the reflected light is a natural light from a window.  In that case the reflected light would be blueish, and the form light more yellow.  But I’m getting ahead of myself )  Back to drawing!

"Maria" Final stage drawing, graphite on paper, by Jessica Libor 2011

You shouldn’t have as much information such as details and variation in value in the shadows as you do in the light.  Put in LESS reflected light than you want to.  You have to make sacrifices as an artist.  Model twenty percent of what you want to in the shadows!  It’s all about self control.  Resist the urge to exaggerate favorite details such as eyelashes.

Layer from softer pencils to harder.  The harder the pencil, the more light and precise you will be.  Compare every value.  Ask yourself, should this plane be lighter than this plane?

When rendering hair, think of it as a shining object, a single thing, not the millions of hair strands that it is.  When seen in light, it functions like a satin ribbon.   The hightlight actually runs in perpendicular to the way hair grows.  Notice the hair in the piece below.

Study of a New York Woman, by Graydon Parrish

Serena, by Jacob Collins, 2004

Inbal, by Joshua LaRock, 12"x14", 2007

As you are looking back and forth from the model to your paper, don’t worry about the midtones right now, they will figure themselves out.  Look at the shapes that the dark and light create.  Remember that you can’t create form by COPYING values, because our value range as artists is more limited than in real life.  You must compress the values to create something with sculptural integrity–like a block of marble.  Think about making it an experience of volume on the page.  Take big swaths with the chisel of your pencil.  When you do start to think about midtones, tread lightly!  The dark light is turning with the form until it kisses the shadow.  Every form goes through the same gradation of lights and darks.  It’s just how fast it goes through all the gradations.  In the light, the value changes are less than you think they should be.  Hairlines are a soft transition from skin tones.  If by the end of this drawing session, the form isn’t round enough, then the shadows need to be darker and the form light lighter.

Drawing by Steven Assael