Saturday, October 30, 2010

"Finished" Child portrait in watercolor by artist Linda Young

Meet Roman
 a Watercolor portrait 8-1/4" x 10-1/8" by Linda Young

This is the finished portrait of Roman, a grandchild of a client of mine who will be giving this as a present this Christmas to her son and daughter-in law.  When I was painting him I saw the youthful innocence and yet the intense curiosity in his beautiful gray blue eyes really stood out and made impression on me.  Considering I only had a 4 x 6 photograph to go by and then enlarged some via scanning, his eyes were so important to me to paint as correctly as I possibly could.  His gaze was capitvating. 

I originally painted the background a light cobalt blue, then medium blue to build up the color; but his eye's and hair got "lost" and didn't stand out; in fact it was quite boring!  I slept on it overnight and this morning when I awoke to the painting by my bed, I saw it with a fresh eye.  It was apparent to me what was needed:  depth and texture.  The colors in the background I chose were combinations of (or straight) mixes of cobalt, burnt sienna, ultramarine blue, sap green and quinacridone red.  There are many layers of glazing in the background and most of it was done wet into wet.

I'm happy with the way Roman turned out.  I hope you have liked the steps to creating this painting from start to finish.  I feel like I know Roman personally without ever having met this little man.  Maybe one day, I'll get to meet him face to face.

Linda Young Watercolors website

5 comments:

Julie Riker said...

Fantastic Linda! Your client will be thrilled.
I really like how you treated the background. It is suggestive of an outdoor setting without being focused on details. It was interesting to see and read about your process with this. Great job with such a small reference photo.

Unknown said...

Great painting, Linda! Watching all come together was exciting. I agree, the darker background really does work better.

Kathy Michels said...

He is just so adorable. You did a great job of capturing those facial expressions. It was so fun watching the process. Thanks for sharing! The recipient of this Christmas present will absolutely love it!

Unknown said...

Thank you for your comments; I hope she will be happy with it too.

Unknown said...

Painting was delivered today; I think she was really happy with it.