"100 Faces, No. 23"

4 x 4"
oil on masonite
sold

There are a few things with respect to painting I'm sure of - whether you're working from life or a photo, paint what you see and not what you know. When I started this series of faces, I didn't consider myself a decent portrait artist - so I approached it, much like I do in any subject, as a landscape of colors and shades. Yes it's a man, yes it's a nose - but not much different than hills and valleys. There's depth, dips, protrusions, highlights. You just map it out like any other subject or scene. I try hard not to start with the greatest intention of 'likeness' - I just work with areas and count on the end result - a leap of faith every time.

I've said this before, but I'm sure that my brain follows the general mood of a subject or scene - not so much consciously, it just seems to happen. If a face is somewhat soft or delicate, my painting turns out soft or delicate. In this case, the face is harsh, rough, aged. I ended up with greys mixed with colder reds - took an old, worn out brush and scrubbed the background around the head. Very cool result.

I'm very sure that if you paint, you should constantly challenge yourself with different subject matter. Down the road, you'll feel a lot more confident with larger, more realized paintings. My best analogy is cooking - the more recipes you try, the more natural it comes to you when you decide to use pork instead of chicken.

Back to work....