Victorian Faces # 9

Victorian Faces #9
oil on ply, acrylic ground
12.7 x 12.7 cm/5x5 in

Another Victorian faces portrait. Painted using titanium white, ivory black and vandyke brown.  I found vandyke brown in interesting pigment mixture to use.  This tube was grainy in texture and I thought that might have been the age of the tube.  I buy tubes of oil paint when I see them at garage sales and also inherited  quite a few so they are really old!  But I then bought a new tube and found the texture grainy, so I suppose that is a quality of one of the pigments in the mix.  The faces I paint are from mugshots at least 100 years old and freely available  on the internet.  They are all women accused of some fairly minor offence, often sentenced to horrendous terms.  I find their expressions very interesting, Some embarrassed, some defiant, some pathetic etc.   Trying to capture the expression is my goal. 

Victorian Faces #7

Day 2 of the 30 in 30 Painting Challenge

Victorian Faces #7
5x5", 12.7x12.7cm
oil on canvas, acrylic ground

This canvas pad was very rough even with extra gesso applied.  I found it difficult to paint the smaller details with any accurancy because the brush skipped over the rough surface.  Will move on to smoother panels I think.

Victorian Faces 6

Victorian Faces 6
oil on acrylic ground on paper
5x5", 12.7x12.7cm

Painted using Ivory Black, Titanium White and Gamblin's Torrit Grey.  The paint company Gamblin makes this oil paint from recycled pigments collected from their air filtration systems.  Each batch is a different grey depending on what has been produced since the last cleaning!  It is named Torrit grey after the air filtration system.

Victorian Faces 5

Victorian Faces 5
oil on acrylic ground on paper
5x5", 12.7x12.7cm

I woke at 3am and not able to get back to sleep got up and painted this face. It was one of those that seemed to paint itself.  One of my favourite of the Victorian Faces.

Victorian Face 3

Victorian Face 3
5x5", 12.7x12.7cm
oil on acrylic ground on paper

Victorian Faces 2

This is the 3rd face I painted, the 2nd just didn't work and will be tried again.  For this one I tried a Matisse style of outlines, simplfied forms and colour with a Zorn palette of Red, Ochre, Black and White.  Fun to do and this face lent itself to the method. 

Victorian Face 2
5x5", 12.7x12.7cm
oil on acrylic ground on paper

Victorian Faces 1

 I have been playing with painting faces.  A few years ago I tried a couple of family members from photos and found that fairly difficult.  The painting became too tight as I tried too hard to get a likeness. I enjoy the looser painting styles showing brushstrokes - difficult to achieve.
 I enjoyed painting portraits a lot and felt I needed lots of practise so decided to try again using old photos from the internet.  The women I have started with are from Victorian age black and white photographs. The photographs are very bright showing little in the way of facial form so I have to use my imagination somewhat.
I have used ivory black and white, others I have attempted to add colour and others one other colour such as yellow ochre, Vandyke brown, burnt umber, various Torrit Greys, etc.   I love how one small brushstroke can change an expression.  I decided to use a consistent 5x5"format for now.
This was the first one I tried, but the last finished as it is my third attempt at this one.

 

Victorian Face #1
5x5"oil on acrylic ground on ply
Vandyke Brown, Titanium White, Black, yellow ochre background