Here is a new portrait for my series No-Small-Parts. This is another of my heroic portraits, where I try to capture a glimpse of heroism in people engaged in their daily work. This time the subject is my cousin Donatella, pictured in the middle with her nurse colleagues as I wish again to celebrate their critical role in these challenging times. Here can you see the different stages of the portrait: The portrait was problematic since the start, because I worked from a spontaneous selfie, that my cousin took from her mobile phone and the light was very dark and the faces of the subjects were serious and tired and the dark light did not help much. But I could see a sparkle in their eyes, a mix of kindness and hope, as if saying: "Let's get things done!" So I focused on that. In the preparatory drawing I have worked so to subtly show how their eyes were smiling. I also drawn the mouths of the lady on the left of my cousin a little more smiling, opening it a bit, while I tried to reproduce as much as possible the original smile of the right lady as it says it all already :)
All together, it was a hard work to render a little more hopeful expression of the faces, in a flattering way, but respectful of their features and of their heroic role. Heroism is at the end the goal of this portrait. In the start, I was still trying to capture the dark shadows light in a realistic way, but the faces were getting too strong and so the whole drawing was becoming overdone. So I tried to add a wash of water to thin the paint and I started working towards spreading the sparkle in their eyes to all their faces, so I added in layers warmer and lighter shadows, counter balanced by shadows of Phthalo and Cobalt Blue. For the skin I worked with: Camboge Yellow, Quinacridone Gold (one of my favourite pigment), Burnt Sienna, Scarlet Lake and Rose Dore. The background was also challenging, I started from the background as it was shown in the picture. I opted for the colors typically associated with depiction of the Corona virus: purple reds and black-grey. For the black-grey colors I have mixed: Burnt Umber, Cobalt and Ultramarine Blue. I give up on the temptation of big strokes with my large, flat brush and I got carried away. I wanted a mix of swift and robust strokes, dark and red to suggest the chaos of the current situation, from which my subjects could emerge as bringing a smile and hope, as they literally do everyday :) The title aims at suggesting a popular medieval allegory: The three Virtues - typically pointing at Faith, Hope and Charity, these figures represent values to pursue to achieve a sort of spiritual enlightenment personified in three women. bring grace and beauty. I am not religious, but these three beautiful women, smiling with her eyes, taking a selfie for me to make their portrait while at work and helping people everyday, well it made me think of that. As it also feels medieval to have to deal with such a pandemic. I hope I was able to save it from the darkness that was destroying any hope of light ;) I hope you like it and that you might want to stop by my blog Have a lovely day Bertie
0 Comments
|
AuthorFreelance illustrator and painter. Archives
May 2023
Categories |