My Hunky Cowboy Oil Painting...Number 7 of 52 Paintings!

Week number 7 of 52 paintings    

oils on canvas   

This week I was challenged to paint a Cowboy...not just a regular guy, but an amazingly hunky and manly Cowboy!

 Look at all of his amazing life lines and sun drenched face...I think he has seen a lot in his life....this is a real working Cowboy...I can't wait to paint him.

I first began by really looking over his character. What is it that makes him so cool? How can I make him seem life like and still painterly?

I quickly learned that with portrait work it is working-out placement of ears, eyes, etc. and also the uniqueness each individual...some eyes are closer in, some wide apart and so on...


PHOTO

I started by quickly sketching him out in thinned out paint color.  For this I used  "burnt sienna". I then moved on to blocking in under paint colors; using "olive green" in some of the warm shadowed areas (right side of face), and "cobalt blue" in the coolest shadow areas such as (under hat, neck and beard) and "burnt umber" in the cool mid shadow areas (left of nose, eye).

Once I had this all blocked in I began to see a dimensional shape. This was a great feeling but, quickly panic set in...I thought to myself; "I have to make it look like an identifiable face."

I mixed four flesh hue tones from light to the darkest of tones and just started looking at shapes to paint. I think this is the key to paint the shapes not the objects....as I went through and started doing this it somehow seemed to be fun....some shapes were so strange and yet cool to recognize...I never noticed  how many weird shapes are shadowed onto our face! it was like painting a puzzle.By the time I put in these shapes I saw what appeared to be a recognizable face but...like it had bad plastic surgery. Again a little overwhelming feeling began...."now what!" I asked...
                                                           UGLY STAGE

The next day the paint seemed to be "set enough" to start working on it again....I began transitioning one shape to another...smoothing out, adjusting hue, and so on....I can't believe what a dramatic change occurred!! I was thrilled...I was actually painting a picture that looked pretty close to the real guy!



Overall from this experience I learned that portrait work is a challenge and rewarding. It goes through an ugly stage, a fun stage and a "how am I going to get there stage:).Then finally, a WOW stage.

                    c. Nicole Slater   11 x 14"  oil on canvas "Hunky Cowboy " 2014

 I really enjoyed this challenge and found that the finished painting is worth the time and frustrations to capture the persons character "just right."

The slightest character features are so important to capture. They are the essence of who the "person is" through life experiences such as this hunky Cowboy...in this instance "coolness" is his character.

 I think he has lived an interesting and rewarding life...at least it's what I want to believe:)

www.nicoleslater.com