Limited Palette Portrait In Oil

"George" Session 1

 

As I'm new to oils I'm experimenting with various approaches and this time I have gone into the portrait directly in paint thinned with a little W&N Sansodor.

 

My first oil portrait "In Blue" was painted from a still on the TV, this reference is a 'little' better but still provides some tricky lighting that bleeds out a lot of skin hues. However, at this stage I'm just happy to be getting to know oils; mixing, mediums, flow, brushes, dark to light, lean to fat etc...

 

"George" Session 2

 

I applied a tint with a cloth and diluted oil...Just because I'd never done that before and want to try as many techniques as possible on this adventure with oils.

 

The nose gave me problems and I had to lighten with white to be able to see where I was going. I guess this is one of those pains that would have been avoided with a sketch first rather than direct oil paint to draw in with but I don't think it will do harm to the painting as it was very diluted and dry in very little time.

 

I worked the nose for ages getting nowhere but a mess so I walked away and came back it to it a few hours later and popped the nose on in under 5 minutes....I can't tell you how happy that made me!