How To Paint A Portrait: EPISODE FOUR - Painting The Paint Maker

Hey guys, welcome to another episode of The Great Art Adventure. This week we're going to take another look at portraiture, starting with a sketch painted from life, and then moving on to the studio with an in-depth look into the portrait painting process. We're going to take a really close look at detailing the portrait as well. Also we're going to take a closer look into the oil paint making process. We're going to visit the Langridge factory. I really hope you enjoy this next edition to our show dedicated to painting. On this episode, I'm going to catch up with a really good friend of mine, Mr. David Coles, and I'm going to paint a sketch from life at his home in Melbourne. When possible, it's important to work from life. That way we can really gauge what our colors are doing. The setup is really simple. I've got a portable easel with my palette, paint, and all the brushes I could use, as well as a piece of linen that's been taped to a masonite board. I'm sketching in the major lines of the composition with burnt umber on a bristle brush. I mix up ultramarine and burnt umber to make the black for his shirt and block that in. I really love this cool background that David's sitting in front of. It's going to provide heaps of contrast. It's great to have an opportunity to paint somebody like David. David's an artist in his own right, and over the course of the sketch, David and I had a great chat about the process. It's about actually looking, and what you thought was in front of you, and what you could actually see was in front of you, are two completely different things. It's a challenge perceiving skin tones when taking into account all of the different kinds of light that are reflecting off David's form. I know what you're thinking, and you're about to skip to the next video, but they always end up looking a bit funny in the initial stages, so stick with me. When blocking in a sketch like this, it's important not to get bogged down in detail. I only want the major shapes, colors, and tones to really nail David's character. Sometimes a quick gestural mark or a simple line can communicate a great deal. I'm about to wrap up this sketch. It's been a really productive couple of hours filming and painting in David's home. I'm happy with the composition overall. It's got a couple of things I'll work out. I might work on the study a little bit more back in the studio, but then I think this is really going to inform the bigger painting. So do you want to take a look? Is that okay? Yeah, come have a look. That's always the big reveal, right? Well, that's great. No, really. It's getting something a little bit more intimate, I think, is the idea, right? It definitely seems to come through that we sort of engage in a conversation, and that we know each other anyway before this, yeah? Yeah. Yeah, I think it's something very… Well, thanks, mate. Look, I think it's going to make a good, bigger painting. I'm dying to get back into it in the studio, but thanks so much for sitting with me today. Thank you. Looking forward to seeing the results. Awesome. Cool. So, as you can see, the sketch is really just a loose way of getting my ideas and thoughts together. It doesn't have to be a detailed painting. It doesn't have to be finished at the same level that I do a normal studio painting. It's just supposed to give me that little nudge along in the process. But now that we've painted this sketch of Mr. David Coles, let's take a closer look at what David does. Not only is David a great artist in his own right, but he is a master paint maker, the creator and founder of Langridge Artist Colors. We went to the factory on a day that David was making a really striking color, cadmium orange. David took us right through the process of how he makes his amazing oil paint, starting from the very beginning with the pigment. The process starts with these mixers, adding in the pigment to the oil and stabilizer. It's mixed here. It's mixed probably around about 50% of the mixing is taking place at this stage, and then we do the full 100% mixing using the triple roll mill. This triple roll mill is a really unique piece of machinery. Here, the paint is fed through these giant granite rollers to make sure it comes out as a really smooth consistency. And that's the last of the mix done. The machine is fired up, and the mix is fed through. The wheels are turned to adjust the spacing on the rollers to get the right consistency. The beautifully smooth paint collects here in front of the rollers, where it's gathered and fed back into the machine for a third pass. Once a paint has been fed through the mill and is down to a fine consistency, David checks the product to make sure it's of the utmost quality. So what I've done is I've drawn that down, and I've had a look just to see where, in fact, the first pigment particles have exposed in themselves, and it's here at around about 35, 40 micron. I wanted to learn from David a little bit more about the paints that I use in the studio. Titanium white. Yeah. Absolutely gorgeous colour. Yeah. I mean, of course, it's the most opaque white available to artists. There is no naming convention in the world in regards to what should be called an ochre and what should be called an oxide. That's iron oxide that's been created by natural degradation in the soil, whereas the oxides are manufactured in a factory. We looked at the raw sienna earlier. The burnt sienna, of course, is the same pigment, raw sienna, that's been calcined or roasted. There's an exchange in the water molecules, and what we see here is a much redder version of the original yellow raw sienna. The same thing is going on here, of course, with the burnt umber, a much more chocolaty, warm red-brown, which is what we expect to see from the burnt umber. Quinacridone red. How is this made? The quinacridones are the modern organic chemistry. In essence, we're talking about rearranging carbon and oxygen molecules. The quinacridone magenta is an incredibly important part of our palette. We actually would recommend it as your mixing red in anybody's palette. It's a red with no yellow in it whatsoever. So the cobalts, again, another 19th century pigment. Very basic, if you like, very simple blue. They do their job magnificently. They're opaque. They're very fast-drying. They're very compliant. They're very buttery-type colors in regards to the way that you manipulate and push them around. David is an absolute master of his craft. His knowledge of color is second to none. I now have a newfound appreciation for what goes into making oil paint, right from the very beginning of the process to when it makes it into a tube and we buy it off the shelf. So now that we've talked about paint making, let's get into painting. Now, my process generally is broken into three parts. Blocking in, modeling, and then detail. Let's start with blocking in. I'm working on a 24-inch by 36-inch Belgian linen stretcher. This time it's been primed with an incredibly dark color, burnt umber mixed with ultramarine blue. The old masters sometimes did this to get a tonal contrast from the outset. I sketch in my composition with titanium white and quinacridone magenta to make sure these lines really jump off the surface. I block in my background with titanium white, ultramarine blue, and again a little bit of quinacridone magenta to get a really light blue-gray. It's important not to get precious in the beginning stages of a portrait painting. Here I'm just blocking in my major shapes, colors, and tones to try to get the form of David's face. Now for a bit of extra heat. I mix quinacridone red with a little bit of titanium white to get the feeling of light transferring through the flesh. This will really start to up the color dynamic. Cool reflected light from the skylights above really starts to round out David's face as a three-dimensional form. I try to keep my brushwork clean and concise and make real statements with every mark I make. Now it's time to mark in where the eyes are going to go. These marks are critical, and I must resist the urge to get bogged down in detail. All of these broad marks form what I call blocking in. These are really rough blocks of color that are supposed to define and sculpt the form without any detail whatsoever. I'm painting a black shirt, but I'm not using black anywhere in this painting. These are combinations of ultramarine blue, cobalt blue, burnt umber, and quinacridone magenta. This means I can push these colors into various zones. With this portrait, I really want the viewer to focus on David's face and hands. That means the supporting elements like the background and his shirt are going to be less refined. Now it's time to focus on David's arms. And again, just like the blocking in of the face, I'm going to keep these marks broad and gestural and keep this area from getting too detailed too quickly. I love how the hands form a secondary focus for the portrait. It just wouldn't be a portrait of Mr. David Coles if he didn't have a cigarette. The trailing smoke is going to form an important vector within the composition. Now modeling is the second stage in the process. This is where my marks become a little bit more refined and the color becomes a little bit more fragmented to try and round out some of the curves of the big, broad, flat marks that were a product of my blocking in stage. Now, I'm not ready for detail in the modeling stage at all. All I'm interested in is a little more refinement, a little bit more fine-tuning. The size of my brush is decreased here to give me a little bit more control. When I'm thinking about the lighting situation from the day that we were in David's home, I really love this sharp highlight that's on the side of David's face and how it's balanced out with a cool, dull light on the opposing side. One of the most critical areas in portrait painting are the eyes. I really have to work out exactly the shapes and folds of the skin here in this zone to really capture David's character. The paint is still incredibly wet, which means I'm able to mix and blend across zones. One of the most important ingredients in your painting kit is time. If you have time in the studio to be able to sit back and look at something, it's going to give you a little bit of space to think. Now, with the time elapsed between the blocking in stage and moving on to modeling, I could pick out just a couple of errors that I had made in David's face. It needed to be fleshed out a little bit more and some adjustments had to be made. And here it was time to just readjust the jawline and the position of the ear. I outlined the corrections to be made with a brush loaded with titanium white and cornacrodone magenta. I was close, but I realized that the form needed to be just a little bit fuller and the position of the mouth was slightly off. But it's these subtle differences and position of features that can make all the difference in the world. What I'm really enjoying about this piece is the juxtaposition between warm and cool light. This really helps achieve a three-dimensional effect. The types of brushes I'm using here are hog hair daggers. These not only allow for a wide variety of marks, but some real control as well. Now let's have a chat about mixing color. To mix skin tones, I'm using all sorts of different colors on my palette. But the main ones that are carrying the mix are titanium white, burnt umber, and ultramarine blue. This can then be kicked with cornacrodone magenta, cobalt teal, yellow oxide, and burnt sienna. It's important not to overcome piles of color with other colors, but rather use the area that's available to me to create a wide variety of skin tones. This allows for so many options when painting portraits because I can just reach my brush into the appropriate color and use all of this variety. To keep my colors clean, I mix in zones on the palette. I don't try to affect change across one puddle of color by introducing massive amounts, but rather mix piece by piece by piece. The marks I'm making might appear to be hesitant, but I'm just laying down a few strokes of color and engaging from a distance if they're having an effect. Slowly the image is refined, and David's character is starting to show through. The highlights are sharpened with titanium white and cadmium yellow to really give an intense light glowing off the side of the face. Because I'm using oleo gel, which is a slow-drying medium, it gives me an opportunity to blend colors in with one another. I keep telling myself it's important not to be in a rush. This is a process of slowly refining the form. We were using a halogen light on the day to illuminate the side of David's face, and now the interplay of warm and cool tones is really starting to take effect. I've really been preserving my tones throughout this painting, and now it's time for an intense highlight off the side of the eyeball. This rounds out the form of the eye a little further. When painting features like wrinkles, it's important to mark out the shadow and the opposing highlight. This really allows for a 3D effect. Similarly, small highlights are added to features like the lower eyelid and the top of the lip. Perhaps my block-in was a little bit too loose, so I need to redefine where the position of the fingers are going to go with a fine bristle brush and burnt umber. These form very sharp lines, delineating one finger from the next. Now I can get on with modeling and work out all of those different transitions of colors, warm and cool, to map out a three-dimensional form. I'm really striving to balance out these warm highlights with cool shadows. The highlights consist of titanium white, cadmium yellow, and yellow oxide, and a little bit of burnt sienna. In the shadows, I've used plenty of blue, like ultramarine and cobalt and cobalt teal, and then balanced this out with a little bit of quinacridone magenta. I love the interplay between warm and cool. I spend a lot of time rounding out the hands and the forms of the fingers. This is a really important focal point for the portrait. This cigarette is a really important prop within this picture. It has a highlight on the surface that's facing the skylight. I must be careful not to go to the top of my tonal range and make this a stark white form, so I've grayed out the white here somewhat with a combination of burnt umber and ultramarine blue. There's no way I could have left that background where it was. I had to redefine this area with a little bit more color, something that would show off the highlights on the face. I've chosen a light blue-gray. This is a combination of titanium white, ultramarine blue, cobalt teal, and quinacridone magenta. The background gets ever so slightly darker towards the edges. After redefining the background, I lost the vector of the smoke trail. It's time to get this back in there. My dagger brush is laden with titanium white and oleo gel to make a really translucent paint. I'm not using any opacity here, as that might be a little bit too tonally heavy. The color didn't quite come through in David's eyes in the reference photographs I was using. I reintroduced just a touch of color with some ultramarine blue, burnt umber, titanium white, and yellow oxide. I try to keep the colors here subdued to give it a blue-gray look. If I went too far, it might appear a little bit heavy. My brushes are getting smaller yet again, and now I'm starting to play with the full tonal range of my palette. Much more titanium white is present in these highlight areas. Now that the modeling's been finished, it's time for detail. This is a really important part of the process, but it's not something that we can really rush into. So now that I have a base, I'm ready to add in those fine, tiny little marks that really capture David's character. It's just an accumulation of very fine marks at this stage, and I barely have any paint on the end of my brush. Some areas must be blended to round out the form a little bit further. You can see here upon closer inspection that there really is not much paint on my brush at all. I'm rounding out some of these shadow areas with richer red colors. And the highlights of the skylight above are a much cooler, lighter blue. I'm really only dusting over the high points of the previous layer of brush marks. Now the finishing touches are beginning to go on. These hairs protrude, catching that intense light from the halogen bulb. This is the moment I've been waiting for, to apply these fine details. Overall, the form of the face gets softer and more refined. I'm nearing the end of this project. There's just a few more fine marks around the eyes. They are the main focal point for personality and character. A slight misstep here might take this portrait into a place where it starts looking like somebody else. I take an opportunity here to refine this area to make sure I capture David's character as much as possible. Finally, after all of these hours in the studio, it's time to show David. Now, tomorrow is the big reveal. I can't wait to see what he thinks. It's been a few months. Yeah. Since our first sitting. Yeah. Right? And you've cut your hair. I'm really sorry. You ruined the paint. No, no. Well, look, it's always nerve-wracking doing this, so I suppose we should just drop the unveiling cloth and show you. All right. On three. One, two, three. Oh, God. It's good, right? Yeah. Yeah, it's really very, very beautiful. Can I go closer? Of course. Of course. Really beautiful. Thank you. You've done me a great service. Normally I have to use an enormous amount of hours of Photoshop with an artist. But you've got even more artistic license. I mean, I know painting portraiture is the hardest, hardest thing for any artist to ever do. I mean, it's the greatest discipline, so I'm very, very happy. No, it's been a lot of fun. No, it's fantastic. Well, David, thank you so much. Thank you. Andrew, it is a magnificent portrait, and I'm very, very happy with what you've done. I mean, it is really beautiful. Thank you. Well, guys, that does it for another episode of The Great Art Adventure. I really hope you enjoyed this latest installment. Please share your comments with me down below. And of course, you can connect with me on social media through Instagram or Facebook. Those links are in the description below. But please visit me at www.andrewtichler.com and subscribe to my list for free tips, tricks, and techniques. We'll see you next time.