Mary and Baby Jesus

Well, it's time to start blogging. I've wanted to start kind of an art diary for a while now, so here we go. In this blog I'll keep a record of paintings I do and their progress (along with all the challenges, successes, and uncertainty that come when you are a beginning, amateur painter). I'll also write about art books I read that seem helpful, classes I take, drawings I make, artists I admire... etc.

This is Mary and Baby Jesus. I painted this one for my dear friend Luisa Maria. She's the kind of friend that everyone should have! It's like having a sister (the kind of sister you actually like a lot and want to talk to as often as possible :). I didn't have a lot of time to paint this one, since I started it the week before Christmas and that, my friends, is a crazy time at almost any point of life. This was a two-hour painting for me. One hour to actually paint most of what you see on the finished product, and another hour (or maybe a bit less than that) to work on just Mary's skin, lips, nostrils (man! you don't want to mess up with those... if painted too big, your subject can quickly become a scary little thing!!), and eyebrows.  So anyways, here it is!

I was inspired by a Christmas card sent by a church in my neighborhood. The image in the card actually has a beautiful baby Jesus... let's say I struggled "a little" trying to draw the baby, so I decided to conveniently keep him warm with a nice, red, thick blanket! :) (oh the joys of oil painting!!!).

Let me show you a step-by-step:

I drew Mary and the baby, and, as you can see... she didn't look that awesome the first time! I used burnt sienna on the background and cadmium red, as a base, for the head piece.

I had one art teacher who always advised us to "get rid of the white of the canvas" as fast as possible. I guess it helps you work on the whole painting at the same time, and not neglect some parts of it. So, that's what I did on this step. Added color to all the main sections and started putting some shades of color on the skin. That part was intimidating (working on skin), since I'd never really done it before. I mixed mostly titanium white, some light yellow, some yellow ochre, some (very little, since it's so powerful) cadmium red, and some light brown. I wish I could tell you exactly how much of it. I discovered this is a lot like my mother's cooking. She rarely has recipes for those things she cooks most often. Whenever I want to make her empanadas or spaghetti sauce and ask her for her recipe, she can name the ingredients... but when it comes to quantities, she always says "a gusto" (Spanish for "to taste"). 

On this step I started adding depth to the head piece. I think I've only painted clothing on two paintings before, and they were very small paintings (like, tiny). So, this was a new challenge. I realize that every fold of fabric has a dark and a light side to it (sounds pretty dumb, but soon you'll realize that noticing these seemingly silly things is what makes you paint more realistically). So, with very general brush strokes, I went for the wrinkles that come out of the knot in her head piece. For these wrinkles I used a mix of cadmium red light, burnt sienna, and ultramarine blue. They say you should almost never use flat black in your paintings (as in black paint, from a tube), unless your color scale and value includes it. I've made the mistake before to use it when nothing else was as dark and I managed to ruin a couple of otherwise nice paintings (nice to me, and probably my mom... and I only said "ruin"because I'm too lazy to go back and repaint those spots with the right kind of dark color... I don't think you can ruin anything when it comes to oil paint, you can always paint over it!)

On this step I continued working on the folds of the head piece. I tried to imitate the fabric from the original photograph by noticing where it was lighter or receiving more light and where it was darker (again, as I write this I realize how silly these explanations are, but I'm serious, these are the little things that make you paint better!). I also worked on the folds and wrinkles of the blanket and some of the background. As for the face, you can see that nostril... you could see it from a block away!!!! Why is it slightly disturbing? Let me share some wisdom with you: It's too dark, and of course, big. You have to be careful when painting your dark spots. Keep them consistent. Decide what the darkest parts of your painting will be (in this case, the hair and the background around her face, but not necessarily her nostril). But, once again, oil paint is forgiving with the beginner... you can always fix your mistakes!!!

Here I worked on her eyes. Oh man... are they hard to paint! They are for me at this point. I haven't painted a single eye this big (about an inch) yet and I realize how complex they are. However, this is only natural when you start (at least that's what they say in the book "Key to Painting Faces & Figures" by Rachel Rubin Wolf... she makes me feel better)

 And finally, I got to what I feel is the end. I rounded up her nose a bit, reduced the size of the nostril, worked on her upper lip, chin (made it a bit smaller by painting with brown around it) and skin (took a dry sable brush and smoothed out the segments of color when the paint was still slightly wet). Then I told my husband that I was done (baby Jesus looking like he did in the previous picture) and he told me I needed to make him look more like a baby than a knee! So I added, very cautiously, a bit of hair with a dry brush and a bit of brown paint and something like a light eyebrow to give the viewer a hint that this is actually a baby. 

I owe you all a painting of baby Jesus (or any baby for that matter) where you can actually see a face. I believe I will paint one soon, in spite of the challenge (babies have very different proportions and a tendency to look very creepy when I try to draw them!). 

Overall experience: It was so fun and actually a bit easier than I thought it would be (of course, I'm not talking about the baby). Now that I see the brown background through photography, I clearly see it may need another coat. Although I'm a bit undecided when it comes to a completely finished background. Richard Schmid hardly works on the backgrounds of his portraits and they look amazing!! (look him up... you'll be blown away!) But, he does it in a cool, artsy way I haven't mastered yet :). Hair... her hair could use some depth and highlights so you can see that this is a mass made of individual hairs and not just a dark brown wall. Other than that, my beginning eyes don't yet see much more to do. That's another reason why I like this blogging thing. YOU can tell me what you think (with love though, much love!)

Thank you for reading and painting with me!

Candela