Tanned Man
18 x 14
Demo
Sometimes demos need a little tweaking and this painting is no exception. I painted it in Kelowna last week for a workshop hosted by the Federation of Canadian Artists Central Okanagan Chapter.I found the model challenging because, unlike the pale faces that I get in Calgary models, he had an even tan. There were no obvious cool colours in the usual places and his skin was a darker value than I'm used to in a Caucasian. Luckily, the man's beard and mustache area could read as cool so I bumped them into an obvious green to act as foils for the generally warm composition.
I think the painting was successful given the time constraints of a demo, but, when I got home, I felt that the jaw on the right looked puffy and the ear too large. As well, the background - a black drape that I'd swathed across the shelving behind him - was too light in value, stopping the face from popping as it should. Darkening the drape acted to lighten and enhance the face and to emphasize the models dark eyes.
The day after the demo, the class painted this same model. We'd requested a higher chroma shirt for day 2 and there were some amazing portraits done on "tanned man in burnt orange shirt". It was a great class.
Happy painting!
