Salvador Dali Portrait Demo

Salvador Dali demo portrait- Acryla gouache, 8" x 10"

Last week in my Intro to Illustration class, I did a little demo to show the students a little bit of how I paint using the Holbein Acryla gouache paint we have designated for this class. I started with a drawing I made the night before and transferred to my Crescent # 1 extra heavy weight cold press illustration board.

I knew I only had a couple hours max to make something happen, so I painted "without a net" so to speak. I had no clear idea where to go with it until I started, so I laid down a magenta/pink wash and then some darks to establish the basic value pattern.

From there I responded to the painting and made choices based on what was happening. One choice I made early on was to push Dali's skin tones to the green range to contrast the pink sky. This palette choice is quite removed from normal for me and I got pretty excited about it as it was happening. I figured that it fit Dali's personality as a surrealist and I topped it off by giving him red irises. I think I'll finish this off a bit more in the flower area, and call it good. Not too much though, I sort of like the spontaneous feel of the strokes. Sometimes you surprise yourself when given a challenge.