Isabelle Portrait

Isabelle Portrait

Original photo and final painting:


(Painted with GIMP 2.6.11 on Windows XP - Total Time: 5 hours and 50 minutes)

August 24, 2012 - additional 1 hour 15 minutes:


I thought I had spent too many sittings on this painting, so I decided to finish it today.

In this final sitting, I spent 1 hour 15 minutes to continue building from the likeness that I achieved from last sitting (after the corrections in WIP 07 and WIP 08). It seems to be working. In the end, I am happy with the final portrait.

Isabelle, this is a portrait for you, sweetie!

The rest of you, tell me what you think?

August 24, 2012 - additional 45 minutes:

Same sitting. After relocating the eyes and painting the flesh around them, I now repainted the eyes. As you see here, the likeness is improved significantly with the new set of eyes. What I have not done yet is to soften the tones of the flesh of her eyelids. Additionally, her lips and nose need some minor corrections. All these should be easy to do.

At this point, I am hungry (!) and my eyes are getting bored, so I decided to stop here.

Let's make WIP 07 and WIP 08 examples of how to correct a painting to improve likeness. It's all good, isn't it, my love?!

August 24, 2012 - additional 45 minutes:

I just wanted you to see this dramatic change I made in order to correct the likeness of the portrait.

In this step, I pretty much had to paint over her eyes to achieve the likeness. The first step was to reposition the eyes to the correct location. Then I painted the flesh around the eyes in order to render the new eyes.

In addition, I also corrected her neck and raised the shoulders.

No fear, baby, we'll get it right later!

August 23, 2012 - additional 20 minutes:

I knew the incorrect hair and dark/light values will hurt her likeness, in addition to other things, so I spent this session working on those issues. Almost there, I think. There are only a few little details for next sitting.

August 22, 2012 - additional 1 hour 15 minutes: :thumb322828960:
I was interrupted quite a bit in this 1 hour and 15 minutes. Anyway, I was working on the facial features (eyes, nose, mouth) and the general light/dark values on the face. Very time-consuming! Perhaps I have improved the likeness, perhaps not. At the end, I felt so restless and started making mistakes more and more, so I decided to stop here. I was not completely happy with this session, but it was not too bad. Two more sittings to finish this painting, I think.

August 21, 2012 - 1 more hour: :thumb322470788:
I am having this curse of getting up at 2:00 AM in the morning and my little brain so active I cannot get back to sleep!

So I continued working on this painting for an hour. The likeness improves, but I am not there yet. All the individual features look good standing by themselves, but they need to be brought together to create harmony and likeness. Perhaps another sitting will do.

Now I'm gonna go back to bed. At least one hour was put to good use!

August 20, 2012 - 35 minutes more: :thumb322429429:
I am working on her facial features with an "over-all approach", without focusing on a particular area. I know the likeness is not completely there, but her special nose feature calls for a systematic and somewhat traditional method to get right. Her eyes are not completely done, but I know what to do next. With some minor adjustments next time, the likeness will be there.

August 19, 2012 - adding 13 more minutes: :thumb322080297:
Added another 13 minutes to make it an even total of 20 minutes...

August 18, 2012: :thumb321886904:
I promised Isabelle this portrait months ago, but never got time to start painting it!

August 24, 2012