Art in the Making by Jenny Armitage

After the Slumber Party (8 x 10) sold

This Friday, my daughters went to a slumber party.  Predictably they stayed up until one.   They got up at eight.   When I picked my girls and a friend of theirs up at noon, they had just finished breakfast and were wide awake and chattering.   We stopped to drop our guest’s things at her house and then took all three girls to library. Chatter, chatter, chatter.    A very late lunch at the Road House followed.   Chatter, chatter, chatter.

It was it was 2:30 by then.   The chatter continued through lunch.  But Road House lunches are heavy and plentiful.  Stomachs full, the girls were suddenly overwhelmingly tired.  My youngest leaned against her friend and both girls would have fallen asleep right there had we let them.   I snapped a picture.

Reference Photo

Today I painted it. I did my best to correct the ugly green blue light of the restaurant. I made red-purple shadows of blue green ones, and removed the excess pink from their faces.

The palette is cadmium red, cadmium yellow and cobalt blue. Which the exception of some yellow ochre along the jaw lines, those were the pigments I used on the faces. I defined the eyes, nostrils and shadows in cobalt first. Then I painted the faces working mostly wet into wet.

The girls’ hair is various combinations of burnt sienna, cobalt blue, and yellow ochre. I used these three for the brows and lashes too. I added a little phthalo blue to the jacket and the wall.

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Cass Up Close (8 x 7) $75.00

This pretty young lady is a friend of my daughters.  I took the photo almost to years ago for drawing practice.   Browsing through my photo files yesterday, I decided to crop it close and paint it.  After painting landscapes and not much else at shows, I really wanted to do a portrait again.

The palate was simple, cadmium red, and cadmium yellow, burnt sienna, and cobalt blue.   I added some burnt umber for her hair and lashes.

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Twixt Wind and Water II (12 x 16) $225

Twixt Wind and Water

We spent last weekend on the beach.  I took enough photographs to have seacape material for some time to come.  While I was there I reworked Twixt Wind and Water.  Here is the result.  As you can see, I gave the painting considerably more sea-room to the left, so that she has something more to look into.

I began her hair with an under-painting of colbalt blue.  Then I used layers of yellow ochre, burnt sienna, and cobalt blue to complete it.  Quidacrone deep red rose provides the accent color in the hair band.

Her jacket is cobalt blue and prussian blue mixed on the palate.

The sea began as phthalo blue and burnt sienna with reserved whites.  Then I changed my mind about much of the wave action and began experimenting with white gouache.  To cover strong colors, gouache must be laid on fairly heavily.  And even though I don’t use ultra white paper, gouache white is still bluer that the paper.  Also, as I discovered gouache will washback into transparent watercolor and vice versa.  Work a little gouache onto the paper and nothing painted there will ever be entirely transparent again.

The effect is interesting, but I think next time I’ll stick to transparent watercolors, unyielding to change though they may be. I like the translucency better.

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A Little Wind and Water (5 x 7) SOLD

Twixt Wind and Water

Yet another little painting I did at the fair. This one is a smaller version of one of my favorite paintings, Twixt Wind and Water. The only thing I didn’t like about the original was the vertical format. I thought the painting would look better with more sea and waves to her left. So I played around with that idea in this smaller version. I do like the extension of the the sea, but I think I made a mistake in showing too much of her right side. If I do a full sized painting of this one again, I will keep the extended horizon but still crop-out most of her right shoulder.

Reference Photo

As you can see, both paintings show a complete change in compositional thinking from when I took the reference photo. Taking the photo, my thoughts were all about the shape of her figure and the rock. But when I looked at the photo up close, I fell in love with the hair spilling out of her braid. That required some rethinking. Looking at the photo again, I’m tempted to include more of her body to increase the feeling of movement.

Georgia in the Morning

I am now offering many of my paintings as greeting cards through Fine Art America. The cards are 5 x 7 inches and can be printed blank or with a custom message inside. A single card costs $5.45. In packs of ten they are $2.95 each or $29.50 per pack. In packs of 25 they are $2.25 each or $56.25 per pack.

Morning Changeling (8 x 11) $125

This is my eldest daughter in the dark end of the family room with the morning sun lighting up half her face. I ended up printing my reference photo three times in various stages of overexposure to get the feeling I wanted for the sketch. I used all three prints when painting.

I’m still working on painting loose and free. I worked quickly wet into wet, taking care to make the sunlight’s edges the only hard edges in the painting.

The palette was simple: quinacridone gold, quinacridone deep red rose (which I only used for accents in her skin) burnt sienna, and phthalo blue. I emphasized the yellows and oranges to keep the feeling of sunlight.

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Floating on the Lawn (11 x 15) $125

This is one of my daughters’ friends luxuriating in the lawn. Sinking into soft grass and staring up at the sky is one of the best feelings there is.

I had fun with this one.

The biggest problem I had was forcing myself to make the grass dark enough. Consequently it went down in many layers beginning with cadmium yellow and cobalt blue and progressing through ultramarine blue and ocher yellow. I washed dioxazine purple over it to dull the color and dropped French ultramarine into the shadows. In the end the background took longer than the figure. [In fact I uploaded another version of this painting thinking I was done. After looking at it a while I strengthened the shadows and reposted it. ]

before the darker shadow.

The girl herself was purple pink in the light and I exaggerated that effect. I used rose madder quinacridone and cadmium yellow for her skin and dioxazine purple for the shadows in her face.

Much of the pink in her face was reflected light from her shirt. I used quinacridone magenta, more rose madder quinacridone and dioxozine purple for the shadows in her shirt. Then I washed her shirt with Winsor and Newton’s Opera—yet another quinacridone.

In keeping with the pink and purple theme I used dioxazine purple to under-paint the shadows in her hair before washing it with yellow ocher and burnt umber. I love under-painting for hair. It produces the most natural looking shadows.

purple underpainting

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Pondering (11 x 12) $200

This is my eldest daughter again, curled up in an armchair pondering her options. It is an isn’t and portrait since I painted her as the young woman she will be in a few years and not as the pre-teen girl she is.

Georgia is hard to paint, because her features are perfectly regular. Her lips are unbelievably red, her eye lashes unbelievably dark, and her eye brows very dark for a blond. Painting her is a matter of toning her down enough to make her real.

I solved this problem by painting her almost entirely in earth tones. Ochre yellow, burnt siena, cobalt blue, and burn umber predominate. The sunlit side of her face was washed with cadmium yellow and red rose madder quinacrone. I used some alizarine crimson on the shadowed side of her face, but mostly yellow ochre and burnt sienna. Her shirt is burnt sienna and yellow ochre. I mixed these with raw umber for her browns and lashes. The background is layered washes of burnt sienna, cobalt blue, yellow ochre, and rose madder. Her hair is yellow ochre, cobalt blue and burnt sienna.

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Windswept (8 x 10) $100

This is Paula with the wind spilling her hair from it’s braid.

I took the creative approach to color with this one. But I think I caught the feeling of her cold wind-burned face. I like the feeling of movement in her face too.

The main colors are dioxzine purple, alizarin crimson, and yellow ochre. I used these colors for her skin after laying down a wash of deep red rose and cadmium yellow. I washed her eye sockets with cerulean blue. Her hair is entirely yellow ochre and dioxzine purple (the two make a lovely cool browns and beiges). Her eyes are cobalt blue and yellow ochre. Her shirt is cobalt blue and her jacket cobalt blue and dioxzine purple. The sky is cobalt blue and ultramarine blue.

I found this painting a relief to paint after the last two. Almost life size portraits are fun. Distant figures are fun too. But I have difficulty getting a two or three inch face right–it’s putting in the right amount of detail that gives me fits–that and that an eight of an inch mistake changes the face enormously.

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Sneakers I (11 x 17) $100

This is my youngest daughter in a characteristic pose. I love the way she has clasped her hands in tight but spread her legs out with her feet pidgin toed.

I poured all of this painting except for her hands and feet and an under painting of the carpet. I painted her hands and feet first, and then masked them to protect them from the pour. I left the under-painting of the carpet pattern unmasked.

face and hand

I masked and poured three times. When the mask came off: I adjusted the values, added shadows and shoe details; and touched up her face.

first pour

mask off

I used Winsor red, alizarin crimson, and cadmium yellow for her face and hands. I used hansa yellow medium, burnt sienna and phthalo blue for the first pour. I substituted raw sienna for hansa yellow in the second and third pours. I direct painted with the pouring palette.

What would I do differently? Well I like this painting a lot as is. I would mask the hands and face before painting them and paint them after the pour next time. I think I would also leave the sunshine streaks across the carpet out.

I like the painting enough that I’m going to do it again without pouring.

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