Art Books I'm Reading: Portraits from Life in 29 Steps.

Hope you're all staying warm these frigid days and reading some good books! Like I said before, I'll tell you about the art books that I read. The one I just finished reading is called "Portraits from Life in 29 Steps". I found this book while browsing the art section in my local library. It was written by John Howard Sanden, who happens to be a very famous portrait artist who's even painted former US President Bush (and his painting is now in the White House), and many of the first ladies. I liked this book for several reasons.

1- Excellent quality of images. This may seem like an unnecessary point to bring up (given that technology allows us to have great images everywhere nowadays), but I've read books about oil painting (older books, of course) with black and white pictures. Not very helpful for me at this stage of my development! Here are some pictures I took of the actual book pages:

Nigerian Lady p.129

The Very Reverend Ned Cole p. 102

The Very Reverend Ned Cole p. 103

2- Pro Mix Portrait Palette: This was one of my favorite features about this book. It's always nice for someone like me, who doesn't really know what she's doing, when good painters share the colors they use and how they mix them to attain certain effects. Sanden shares here a portrait palette with the exact standard colors (the ones you buy from the store), and mixed colors that will help you paint portraits. How nice is that? He reminds the reader, however, that observation is really the most important skill here. Even though his palette organization seems pretty successful, he always adjusts it according to what the sitter (or model) really looks like. These adjustments, though, seem pretty easy once you have such nice arrangement of colors to work with. Let me show you some pictures I took of these pages so you get an idea:

The Pro Mix Portrait Palette pp. 38-39

The Pro Mix Color System, Lights p. 41

The Pro Mix Color System, Darks and Halftones pp.42-43

To be honest, practicing color mixing on exercises like these seem excruciatingly BORING to me. BUT... another famous painter, Richard Schmid (whom I admire very much... I'll tell you more about him later!), says exercises like these are a must when you want to become a realistic painter who's comfortable with color mixing. So... I think I'll be working on some palette "fun" in a few days. Another thing I liked was to see new colors in his standard palette, which I don't own yet (and I'm excited to get... thank you, Michael's for your weekly 40% coupons!!). These colors are:

- Chromium Oxide Green

- Cadmium Orange

- Venetian Red

3- Cool painting tricks: 

- According to Sanden brush strokes are like mosaics. Every single one is essential for the final picture and once it's laid on, it's there to stay. He doesn't encourage much underpainting in his Alla Prima technique (which means that he paints his portraits in one sitting). 

- Observation, observation, observation. You won't paint something you don't see; so, sharpen those eyes and start noticing things (and painting them).

- He actually uses bristle brushes (brushes with rougher hair) to apply most of his paint. He uses sable brushes (brushes with softer hair) only for careful details. I never use my bristle brushes... probably because they're half dead and rock hard! :)

- Fan Brush. Have you seen this kind? The brush looks exactly like its name, a fan. I've seen them at the store but I've never really owned one. I always wondered what they really were for. Sanden just told me (I make it sound like we've become great friends) you can use that brush to "fluff up" hair (not too much, though). Isn't that interesting? 

- And last, but not least, the placing of the portrait on the canvas. Look at these pictures:

Ta daaaaa! He makes it look SO DARN easy!

Shadow application (look at the different tones in those shadows!)

LOOK at that facial expression! Wouldn't you want to paint like that? I know I do!

Those were my favorite aspects about "Portraits from Life in 29 Steps". Highly recommended. Check out your local library system and see if they have it. 

Thanks for reading!

Candela