Using value and line in combination to arrive at a comfortable likeness. Head shape, eyes, cheeks, nose and mouth.

 

Édouard Manet and Victorine Meurent

“Every new painting is like throwing myself into the water without knowing how to swim.” Édouard Manet

This quote of course can be interpreted quite literally for us watercoulourists!

Victorine Meurent was Édouard Manet’s favorite model. She crops up everywhere: Olympia, Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe, The Railway – the list goes on and on. There’s even a painting of Victorine dressed as a Matador. She was an artist in her own right, part of the Paris art scene and even had paintings accepted at the prestigious Paris Salon – No “Salon des Refusés” for Victorine!

In all of Manet’s paintings, Victorine looks slightly different. Manet had a way of caricature-izing her features and I took to musing about what she really looked like. I started a study from a period photo in one of my painting classes and then thought I’d continue on for a while. I ran into trouble because the harsh contrast on this and other period B&W photos make poor references – she looked different in every photo! I could not easily reconcile the photos with any of Manet’s paintings – and referring to paintings purporting to be her by other artists of the time threw me into total confusion.

My painting may or may not look like Victorine and I’ve decided that trying to establish a forensic likeness from multiple sources is a good exercise in futility. That said, I do quite like my study and I quietly suspect I might have captured something!

 

 

More on Developing Features with Value and Line

Developing features and achieving a likeness can be frustratingly elusive. Like many artists, I was often struggling with getting a look – even though I could draw quite accurately. Then I picked up the idea of two ways to approach the challenge – There are often “2 ways to play” and results are the better for it: Start with line and balance with value; Initiate colour and overlay line; Merge shapes with value. There are always possibilities to create, balance and re-balance! I always keep this in mind when I am developing features, perhaps favouring value as in the following video:

Tips for eyes and cheeks

I could have said eyes, sockets, brows, cheeks, bridge of the nose and forehead. They all work together to give someone their “look”. As we have seen, I start by getting the large shapes and values right and then work the detail into this base. It’s difficult to be prescriptive at this stage because with some portraits, I like to leave the eyes mysteriously unfinished. With the following study, dark washes into the eyebrow, eye socket, eyelid, iris and pupil:

When finishing the eye and cheek area, the points I keep in mind are:

1. Look carefully at the shape of the eyes. Few people have “Almond eyes” with identical upper and lower lids – it’s the subtle differences in shape that count. With many people, the lower lid is flatter than the top, often more curve toward the inner area, particularly on the top lid. I always look for lights above the eyelid and also the degree of hooding.
2. I treat upper and lower eyelids differently. The problem is that when you circle something with a continuous line, it tends to separate that element from the surrounding area. That’s not always a good thing. I paint the upper lid with darks – there is often a shadow area in the eye with the upper lid effectively acting like a little shadow-umbrella. Conversely, the lower the lid is often light – perhaps catching a highlight or reflection.
3. I often connect the iris to the upper lid with the same dark value (sometimes leaving it like that – as above). This approach gives a nice connected shape to continue to paint into.
4. I will often glaze transparent paint onto a dark base to give eye colour in the iris and pupil area, taking time, until I happen upon an effect I like. I typically will have the work placed horizontally. In this process, I may take as much paint off as I put on – it’s all part of the painting process!
5. Look to capture the shape and light of the cheekbone – it is an under-appreciated opportunity to create likeness and drama!
6. Unless they are a prominent feature, I just suggest the eyebrows, focusing more on the shape of the eye socket than the line of the eyebrows.
7. As always, value contrasts are your friend!

Tips for painting the mouth.

John Singer Sargent said: “A portrait is a painting with something slightly wrong with the mouth”. Perhaps more than any other part of the portrait, close observation of the landscape around the mouth, including upper and lower lip areas and outward towards the cheek, is key. The following study shows my typical approach to the mouth area:

I keep the following in mind:

1. The upper and lower lips are different, one or the other invariably predominating.
2. I treat the upper and lower lips differently, the upper dark as the lip is often trapping light, the lower light as the lip is in full light and often reflecting it. Take a look through the Reference Gallery and you’ll see what I mean.
3. I never paint the lips a different colour from the skin, at least initially. There is continuity of form and that’s what I strive for, layering some warm onto the already built shapes and forms.
4. There’s a lot of action in the corners of the mouth, slight creasing – upturns and downturns all add character. As a minimum, I make sure that the corners of the mouth are dark. This helps the mouth turn into three dimensions and pocket in the corners, otherwise it risks looking flat.
5. Likewise, the center line of the mouth offers some great opportunities to find character. I never paint a solid line. Rather, I look for where the upper or lower lip predominates and use the boundary between upper and lower lip to capture this.
6. Finally, I form the fullness of the lower lip by creating the shadow area below the lip and above the chin. I find this works better than trying to show this with line, or manipulating highlights.

Tips for noses

Noses are perhaps the area where, above all “Value is King”. There aren’t really any lines to get your brush to, except for the top boundary of the nostril. The following portrait shows my typical approach:

I proceed the following way:

1. I look for the shadow area under the nose, both on the nose itself and on the upper lip area. In many lighting conditions this will be quite prominent. Capturing this, probably more than any single factor, sets the stage.
2. Working around the side of the nose, I look for subtle changes in tone to explain the shape. This approach spreads well into the cheek area and eye sockets too. I am rarely just “painting the nose”, but rather implying the nose in the overall landscape of the face.
3. Oftentimes, there is more shadow on one side of the nose than the other and this is a great opportunity to help define the overall structure of the nose. In fact, I will emphasize and even create this effect with washed-out lighting to underscore the form.
4. The nostrils themselves are typically sharply dark at the top and diffused toward the bottom. The shape and spacing is often under-observed and this can throw off the whole.
5. Should you put a firm boundary around the nostril it will tend to look “flat on” to the viewer and hence a little snout-like.

Exercise

1. Pick two or three of your previous studies and assess eye shape, specifics of each shadow area and the cheek bones for application to future portraits. Perhaps experiment on the side with some charcoal. Now give the mouth and nose area the same treatment!
2. From your reference, run your eye across the centre line of the mouth from corner to corner. What do you see, perhaps repeat this in a contour drawing.
3. Working with a new reference of your own choosing (perhaps using the Reference Gallery), experiment with creating depth and shadow around the features with a minimum of detail.
4. Using one of your existing portrait studies or this new work, develop the face area in consequence of the above experience.

What to do about glasses

I’ve found that there are two basic approaches that work  well, depending on the type of glasses and the impact on the look of the person. Start off by deciding whether the glasses are a “feature” of the portrait or an attribute of lesser importance. Some glasses define the look of the person (say Elton John), at other times they just become part of the face and are de-emphasized (say Steve Jobs).

Strong feature glasses I would block in early for two reasons, they are a big part of the portrait and the structure gives a good reference for the head shape. I take a little time to get the shape of the glasses themselves right because if they are off everything else will be too.

Conversely light glasses, that are less of a look of the person,  I ignore and paint what I see around them. Oftentimes this is enough that the glasses just form because of local distortions and the way I handle the brush. I love this approach: it’s indirect and I can focus on the portrait rather than the glasses.

With either approach I look for lens distortion (often around the side by the temples for example), reflections and changes in colour or clarity to give the effect of glass. Perhaps a light local wash to settle the eyes back.