Beginning a New Portrait

surface of canvas prepped with a tone

Having finished a commission recently, I will be beginning the painting of my daughter on canvas, 20"x30" in acrylic which I had put off when the commission came along. I do have another small watercolour to do, but can take some time with it.

It turned out to be a good thing that I got waylaid from beginning my portrait in the end. I decided to change surfaces from primed hardboard to canvas, and work larger, plus a different aspect ratio :-)


This original image was taken on my cell phone, not a great way of shooting a reference photo for a painting, but I just could not resist the shot. We were at a Mexican restaurant near my Dad's place in Toronto, and Shaun was sitting across from me and the light from the window I just loved on her. Her pose was just what she was doing and I asked her if she could just hold it, may I get a pic. My kids are used to that since they could walk so she agreed.

So, since the image is minus info I would have gotten with my Nikon, especially in the highlights, I will most likely need to keep this portrait more stylized, painterly, as opposed to highly detailed.

The thinking can often be that working from photos is somehow less than working from life, but that is a bit of a myth in many ways. I do have 30+ years of life drawing behind me which help plus I don't see well so reference images are better for me. Plus, no way can my daughter sit for this. In any event, to be quite honest, our drawings from life are still not a representation of real "seeing" because we artists tend to focus on each specific area of the figure/still life we draw, during the whole drawing time, therefore will draw everything in detail. If we were to draw exactly as the eye sees, then only one small area which our eyes are on should be in focus in our painting, and the rest just off that few inches where our eyes choose to specifically sit on the figure/object be a total blur. If I draw with no glasses, my whole image would just be abstract and blurred texture lol!

To work from a reference, one needs to be aware of the short fallings that the equipment may have caused. One, the lens will often create distortion beyond what the eye would create. One example is that a nose on a face in a pic can be too large as it being to close to the lens, or the particular lens and distance the figure was from the lens, will cause the nose to be larger in comparison to the face than it truly should appear to the naked eye. A forward arm can have the same issue.

In the case of my reference here, I had to reshoot her arm months later as it was not in a good position in my original photo. I mocked it up but when I have to draw and paint it, I'm going to need to pay close attention to melding the 2 references in the original drawing, plus make sure I don't make her arm and especially her hand too enlarged and focal. Right now, to keep the reference proper, I had to allow her hand too be too big in it and not foreshortened quite enough. Her face will be most focused, the rest will be less so, the background quite loose and blurred. It will all be played by ear as I paint lol! As well, the table wood will be the gnarled knotted wood of the original table, not the striped veneer of the 2nd ref image.

Most likely this portrait will take me 1 1/2 yrs to complete, on weekends, as I can only work during the day, before 2pm or so, because I work from natural light by my north facing sliding glass window.

I chose this portrait for her casual pose, the beautiful light and shadows on her face, as well as the warm spicy atmosphere and palette coupled with her porcelain skin tones.

reference specifically for
background




reference ready for me to begin
drawing onto prepped canvas

More Sunsets from our Balcony View

We didn't use our balcony as much over this past summer as last year. Not sure why, possibly because we didn't have as warm weather evenings as last summer. Okay, and well, it took me longer into the season to go out and do the cleaning of it lol!

In any event, we still had the pleasure of viewing some magnificent skies this year again. Gorgeous sunsets and one faint rainbow after a rain.

Mom and Baby Deer Sighting!

Always nice to get out for a walk and it's quite a treat to have a place that is only about a 10 to 15 min walk away, the Birkdale Ravine in Toronto. Late afternoons are a great time to go for a nature hike or walk. The light is pretty and many butterflies and dragonflies tend to be out in the late sunshine.

We'd heard that people have spotted deer in the meadow area but I can't recall if we've seen deer there before ourselves.

As we walked, I noticed that the clouds looked slightly ominous. We reached the meadow just as it began to come down. We had just spotted a wolf spider in it's web when the rain started. I grabbed a couple photos as we don't see one of those every day, rarely ever. They are creepy looking yet fascinating at the same time. We ducked under a huge maple tree and the leaves were dense enough to keep pretty much all the rain off of us and my camera. Mosquitoes loved it too though lol!

It was about 20 mins or so before the rain finally let up. It stopped 2x and restarted during that time. Right near the end of the wait, I was looking ahead around the direction of the path we took in and jumped slightly at the sudden appearance of a deer. I knew there'd be more so we stayed still. Another stepped out, munching a flower as it did, and both stood near each other in the clearing of the grassy path. The what I now saw was a Mom deer, a doe, was alert and saw us, the second deer, what turned out to be an older fawn, was not so nervous. It was such a wonderful sight getting to see the Mom and baby deer, and the fawn even reach to nurse from the Mom. Then, they decided enough was enough of being out of the cover of the woods and turned and walked back in.

Such an enjoyable walk.

Cool Walk at Toronto's Rouge Park!

Last weekend, we decided to hit Rouge Park again! Last time, we enjoyed the first ever sighting of a Pileated Woodpecker!

There were clear warning signs near the odd patch of giant hog weed or cow parsnip plants we saw, but most of these plants had been already dead and were a bit in from the paths, some very far in.

Upon entering the park, we heard what sounded like a bird of prey in distress or upset about something, continuously calling. Soon enough, looking up, there was an adult red tailed hawk circling and circling the large same area radius. This went on as we got out of ear shot and it was a bit upsetting as we couldn't really do anything for the bird, which was quite far away and looked to be over an unreachable area up an incline. The bird seemed physically fine through my lens but it was continuously calling and in a high pitched drastic sort of distressed way. Our assumption, uneducated I must add, was that possibly its juvenile was missing, injured or its mate was missing. Later on, on our way out 3+ hours later, we came close to the area again, could still hear it, then suddenly there were 4 hawks, 2 in pursuit of each other, so we figured it was some sort of  not welcomed stranger thing or territory argument, which in a way did help to alleviate most of the upset it caused us to feel, thinking some horrible imaginings.

There were lots of butterflies around and a few awesome dragonflies. We saw red admirals, an Aphrodite frittilery, and lots of white butterflies. We saw dusky brown coloured butterflies too, the name of those I forget.

As for birds, we saw red breasted gros beaks, cedar wax wings, black capped chickadees, cat birds, song sparrows, the pileated woodpecker,

The most exciting plant we saw, and it has to be real cool for me to get all worked up about a plant, was the globe thistle. They were actually in bloom with little purple flowers! First time we've ever seen that, The butterflies and bees just Love them it seems.

The Rouge Park also has a camp ground, which is a municipal camp ground, owned by the city of Toronto. I've never camped there, considering I lived in Ajax which is next door practically, and now live only 20 mins away in Scarborough, but it is always full, fire wood smoke smells are often detectable as one passes it on the 401 Highway lol! Many of the campers though were out on the trails along with the crop in hikers like us. It is a lovely conservation and hiking trail park, with a mix of a bit of short rugged inclines in spots of the paths, which are excellent for exercise if one wants to go those directions. There are a couple more advanced hiker paths, steep inclines, lots of rugged uneven gravel ground, but there are lots of stretches of mainly flat path trails too. We encountered no mosquitoes the late afternoon/evening walk we did, although part of the trails go along the river.

We do enjoy this park and its trails and will be going back in the fall again for the autumn leaves and raptors hopefully.