Portrait Painting in
Oil
Part 1 Drawing
By Brian MacNeil
A 2-part painting demonstration prepared by Brian MacNeil.
This outlines the drawing stages students will follow in preparation to paint a portrait in Brian's oil painting class. This class is held
Saturday afternoons at the Academy of Realist Art, Boston.
Part 1 - Stages of
Portrait Drawing
Initial Block-in:
Here you see the largest most general statement of the portrait. Brian is
establishing the proportions of the head and neck and how they relate to the
shoulders. He locates the boundaries of these elements using slightly bowed
straight-line segments. He does this as if he were building a shipping crate
out of wood. He encloses the object without using too many wooden planks.
Although this stage seems loose and casual it isn’t. Brian makes certain that these constraining lines are
representing his sitter’s posture and proportions.
Feature Placement: In this drawing you see Brian darkening
in some of his lines to illustrate important elements of drawing a
representational portrait.
1.
Central line to position the tilt of the head and
place the features within the head width that was blocked out in the last stage.
2.
Horizontal placement of the features. This
sitter’s features fit in with the normal proportions we expect to find: chin to
bottom of nose = bottom of nose to brow-line = brow-line to hair-line = ½ of
hair-line to top of the head
3.
Vertical placement of features. Using lines
parallel to the central line Brian determines the width of mouth, nose and eyes
making certain these fall where he sees them on the model. Taking a larger
proportional check he sees that his “mouth width” measurement is a little less
than equal to his original “brow to bottom of nose” proportion. He also notes
that his “mouth width” measurement carries over again to the ear on our left.
It’s important to compare small form measurements as well as large
measurements.
Specific Form
Description: In this stage Brian refines the forms by breaking them down
into more descriptive shapes. He still uses straight-line segments but just
uses more of them. This is best
understood if you think of a stop sign shape. It is basically describing a
circle using 6 straight-line segments. If you further refine the circle you
will have an octagonal shape. You could continue to break it down with more
segments until making a perfect circle.
In the portrait there are no perfect circles. So he looks for where
curved lines make the most drastic change of direction. In this stage Brian is
also placing generalized shadow edges.
Shadow and Light
Pattern: This is the completed articulated construct. Brian goes from a general
indication of his shadow edge to a descriptive (articulated) edge where he is
using his form shadows to describe the anatomy of the sitter. The shadow is
shaded revealing the big shadow and light pattern. This is when the drawing
looks most like a puzzle. We clearly see the shapes fitted together.
This completes the drawing that Brian will use for the
painted portrait. The next blog post “Part 2” will show the process of making
the painting.
A painting can only be as good as the drawing. No matter how
the paint goes on the canvas if the drawing is inadequate the painting will be
as well. This is why we stress draftsmanship at the Academy of Realist Art, Boston. Strong draftsmanship comes from a combination of knowledge,
practice and instructed correction.
Brian will be teaching two classes on Saturdays: Portrait Drawing 10
a.m. – 1 p.m. a class where students will solidify their drawing knowledge and then practice these concepts and Portrait Painting 2 – 5 p.m. where a strong drawing
will be used to make an oil painting.
