I liked this photograph, taken by Michael, of himself and Nina in a mirror. Hence the title “Selfie Portrait.”
Oil on canvas. Canvas prepared with two coats of acrylic “gesso,” one coat of Gamblin Oil Primer. Ground was then toned, painted with a different portrait. Canvas was reclaimed by painting over the original portrait with a mixture of Naples Yellow and Flake White. Liberally embedded as usual with cat hair for texture.
Palette and Supplies:
Sketch in Pencil. Got to work right away painting wet into wet. I knew that if I could not achieve some reasonable likeness of Nina I might as well stop there, so I painted her first. She is tough to paint. Not sure why, I think it has something to do with her big beautiful toothy smile. Suzy thinks I put too many teeth in her mouth.
I wasn’t yet discouraged so I continued painting Michael and then some of the background details.
Got to work on the clothing. First Michael’s ….
…then Nina’s
Some final glazes and details. I think the finished work captures the spirit of these two special people, but evidences some lack of discipline. I was also unable to erase all of the black charcoal grid lines which help me maintain the precision of the initial drawing. Since I kept the original color of the toned canvas as my background color, I was reluctant to paint over the lines and change that nice yellow. This was also the first time I’ve used black charcoal, typically I use white, which is a bit easier to remove. It’s actually kind of interesting to see paintings in a partially “unfinished” state. The viewer gets a chance to see the “inner workings” of the painting.
“Selfie Portrait” (2015). Louis Cooper. Oil on Canvas. 20″ x 24″