Now that I am set up in the Studio/Gallery occasionally someone walks in and asks if I could take an old photograph and use it to make a painting. I really enjoy helping people with their personal keepsake projects ... especially when the reference photo is real good. Often times that is not the case as old photos usually are yellow and frayed and there is always a crease right where the eye ball is located.... never fails ( that's probably why they want it painted! ) Hey ... I see a marketing angle here.... have your keepsake photos specially restored with a painting.
Anyway , I get carried away with my natural hucksterisms , I usually start off with a small color sketch to get the colors I want. Since I am still in my Zorn Palette phase , I will use a limited palette to paint this Victorian Portrait.
I am no rookie to colorizing photos. Many years ago, I had a client to hire me to colorize 50 Indian Chief Black and White photos. The reference was usually real bad but I had a blast adding color.
The above is a sampling of some of the small paintings that I produced. Some I added more color than others. I researched the colors for the clothing and I was amazed how much blue the plains indians used in their lavishly designed couture.
Getting back to the Victorian colorized painting, I have decided to include a deep azure blue background reminiscent of a Holbein. Hans Holbein loved to use rich colors for backgrounds for portraits. The client wants color and I think having a deep brown would be too monochrome. Stop me if it looks too garish. As you can also see, the client wants the hand removed and only a head and shoulders interpretation.
Let's see how this turns out.
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Okay ... I have uploaded the finish. The client, who will be in today to see it , told me she had pale blue eyes and brown hair. That's about all I had to go on. So ... starting at 10 yesterday I painted this 11 x 14 in about 6 yours. I must admit I had Holbein and Durer in the back of my mind. They used garish bright colors for their backgrounds... mostly blues and greens. This is a little different for me but let's see what the client says. Several people came into the gallery yesterday and they all seemed to like it. The finish is painted on panel that was gessoed 4 times and then palette applied on the last go round to smooth out the ares around the face. Its a little trick I use. I leave it a bit more rough around the perimeters.
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I find that blue too strong. Maybe toned down a bit? The Indian paintings are great.
ReplyDeleteI look forward to seeing how it turns out!
ReplyDeleteStephanie and Marian... I have just uploaded the finish. I hope the client likes it. I hope you like it as well.
ReplyDeleteI would have to say that having a good black and white photo is actually very helpful. It makes me very aware of the right values independent of the colors.
Beautiful Frank. I'm sure your client will be pleased.
ReplyDeleteHi from Sweden,
ReplyDeleteI enjoy your blogg a lot. I must say you are real fast doing portraits. I love your portraits the most because the have life and vibrate, not like a lot of stuff I have seen which look like bad photos. You are a great portrait artist.
I have a question I hope you can help me with:
What do you mean when you wrote:
"...and then palette applied on the last go round to smooth out the ares around the face..."
do you mean that you use the palette knife?
thanks
Anonyomous..... I painted the portrait on panel. There are 4 layers of gesso and at the final layer I use a palette knife and apply gesso around the area where the face will be to smooth out any grooves. It works out to be a very nice surface to paint on.
ReplyDeleteThannkyou for the compliments.
Mona ... Thanks. The client came and loved it. Ya gotta love happy clients. He has ordered another one and three small iris paintings .
ReplyDeleteThank you Frank for the info on that palette knife /gesso trick.
ReplyDeleteall the best to you,
PS I am happy the client loved it.