Portrait Of A Little Boy, II

Portrait Of A Little Boy, II

 Stage 1:Painting in the figure freehand with a thin wash of Transparent Oxide Red, I loosely laid down my guidelines for the painting. The entire piece is on a 24 x 18" canvas, (much larger than the first portrait of him which was an 11 x 14") and it will include his entire body. I welcome the opportunity to paint the same person twice; it happens much more often when it is a portrait of a child. Sometimes one portrait is not enough when grandparents are involved and want one of their own! 

Now that I am at this stage, I can hardly wait to start progressing. Since I have already painted him once in this same light, a lot of the problems as far as color have already been solved. It will just be a matter of following my notes on color combinations of paint and values to work my plan.

Portrait Of A Little Boy, Part 6

Portrait Of A Little Boy
14 x 11", Oil on canvas
Rita Salazar Dickerson

Session 6: Painting the shirt. I like his original shirt which is a plaid but decided to simplify the pattern quite a bit to keep it from being a distraction to the rest of the composition. The stripes are still interesting and the blue color enhances his eyes.

Its time to let this painting rest for a couple of weeks and move on to the next one. I will be making adjustments after I can look at it again with fresh eyes. This little guy is so enjoyable to paint!

Portrait Of A Little Boy, Part 5

Stage 5: The Background. Now that the background shapes and colors are in I am going to concentrate on his shirt as well as go over the face a bit to make some minor adjustments. Once that is done, I will rework this background again if necessary. Already, as I am looking at this blog post I see things I want to  change.

Portrait Of A Little Boy, Part 4

Stage 4: Ears and hair. Adding light to his hair was the reward at the end of my day.

Portrait Of A Little Boy, Part 3

Stage 3: The mouth, face and neck.  

Portrait Of A Little Boy, Part 2

Stage 3: The nose and face. Even though neither the nose or face is complete, it felt good to get some colors mixed and begin figuring out how I want to apply them.

Portrait Of A Little Boy

Portrait Of  A Little Boy

Stage 1: Using a reference photo I free handed his image with a loose wash of Transparent Earth Red thinned with mineral spirits. My goal was to be as accurate as possible.

Stage 2: The Eyes. He has his back to the sun so his face is in the shade which makes his blue eyes look a bit darker.

Detail of the eyes.