Renaissance Portrait Finished

I just finished up with the portrait project I have been working on. I am really happy with how it turned out. As you can see from previous posts, there is now a lot more detail in the faces and clothes. Last step was to insert the final painting into the panel that I gold leafed and distressed and  then ship it off to my friend Jeff Dinardo.

 He assured me that his significant other would never stumble on this blog, so I feel pretty safe. Now nobody go spoiling it if you know Jeff.  I expect the Christmas morning surprise will be a good one.. I'm thinking it might be fun to do more of these type portraits, so I hope I get a chance sometime.

Part 1 of this project
Part 2 of this project
Part 3 of this project
Gold Leafing of the frame/panel for this project

Renaissance Portrait Progress 3

Lest you think that this project is the only one I have on the table at the moment, never fear. I actually have a number of projects going on, but they are all for a major educational publisher. I am under a non disclosure agreement, so I can't show or talk about them right now. Sometime down the road, I'll show some of that, but in the meantime, I'll show more progress on this little portrait. As you can compare to the last session, I have just about finished up the background and the faces are almost finished now, just a little more modeling and highlights to go. the clothes and hands have a bit further to go, so a couple more days and I think I'll wrap this up. I have another deadline this week, so It'll be tricky to get both of them done. I also have sketches for another project I need to get out before the end of the week as well. Wish me luck!

Part 1 of this project
Part 2 of this project
Part 4 of this project (finish)
Gold Leafing of the frame/panel for this project

Renaissance Portrait Progress 2

Here's where the portrait project sits after another session of painting. It's always a little nerve wracking to show stuff that is not finished. There is always seems to be a point (or two or three) at which you hate how things are going, but you have to forge on, believing that you can pull things out of the fire. This one is actually going about as well as I had wanted, so I hope that moment of doom is not on the horizon. I have blocked in basic colors in the figures and I am working  the skin tones on the woman's face. I am pretty happy with the overall color scheme, so now it is a matter of pushing contrasts and getting all the details worked in. Skin tones are always the hardest to get right, so I am taking extra care there. This portrait project has been a fun change of pace and I am liking how it's turning out. I predict a happy recipient on Christmas Day.

Part 1 of this project
Part 3 of this project
Part 4 of this project (finish)
Gold Leafing of the frame/panel for this project

Renaissance Portrait Progress

I just got off another project and back onto the portrait project I showed a little bit about in an earlier post. I'll be making steady progress until this is finished since it is a Christmas present.  After I got the drawing approved, I changes it to a sepia tone and ran it out on some nice printmaking paper. I'll nearly complete the picture before adhering it into the panel.

I sealed the paper on both sides with some acrylic matte medium and had just enough time the other night to lay in some basic color tones in the background. I started with a burnt sienna tone and then added the greens of the trees and the sky and cloud colors. Still a long way to go. I'll post progress as I go along.

Part 2 of this project
Part 3 of this project
Part 4 of this project (finish)
Gold Leafing of the frame/panel for this project