Robin
by Faith Te

Oil on Hardboard
Size: 25 x 20 cm (10″ x 8″)
SOLD

Here is a bigger oil painting I completed a few days ago. I painted this robin for James Parker’s painting/drawing challenge titled “For the Birds”. Please visit the Windows to the Words blog to learn more about the challenge.

I used my artistic license quite a bit here. I flipped the original reference photo so that the bird faces right. Also, I replaced his feet in the original with the ones from a WetCanvas photo by Dave Slaughter.

This kind of composition — an animal or a flower with its name by its side — was an idea I’ve wanted to try for a long time. At first, I thought the text would be difficult, but using a small brush and thinned paint made it quite easy to do.

I need to do a few more touch-ups on this painting because in some parts, the color of the background near the robin does not match the rest. But apart from that, I’m really pleased with it. I hope you like the “illustrative” style. I plan to make this a series and make some with flowers as well.

Thank you for looking.

Faith

Oil Portrait

Oil on Gessoed Bristol Board
Size: 28 x 36 cm (11″ x 14″)

Like David, I also joined the Different Strokes from Different Folks Year End Portrait Swap. The names of the artists we were to paint or draw were not revealed when we were given the pictures. I still don’t know whose portrait I painted but I do hope he will like it! The challenge was a lot of fun and I would love to participate again.

More about the oil painting…
I initially wanted to use charcoal, but I’ve been using oil paints a lot lately so I decided to do an oil portrait instead. This is just the third oil portrait I have completed so far. There are still a lot of areas which need to be improved, but overall, I am quite pleased with the result.

Oil Portrait Painting – Detail of Shirt
My favorite part in the whole painting would be the green “glow” on his shirt. I didn’t plan it beforehand but as I was adding highlights to the shirt, I felt that the bright green looked better just along the edges. So I softened it just a little and left it that way.

I also began practicing painting in layers lately as I usually paint alla prima (“finished in one session”). I think painting a portrait in layers gives the skin tones more “depth” and a more realistic and lifelike look.

In addition, I’d like to thank a good friend I recently met, Paul Brown. He has been very helpful and generous with his tips and that has given me a lot of confidence. If you haven’t already, do visit his web site and enjoy his super realistic paintings.

Wishing you all a Happy New Year!

Faith

UPDATE: (January 2, 2010) The Portrait Swap has ended. Well, I may never know who I painted, but I woke up today to a truly big surprise — Karin Jurick painted my portrait! I was overwhelmed and very pleased! She also painted the other artists whose teammates weren’t able to reciprocate. My hats off to Ms. Jurick for doing what she did!

Title: Portrait of Ron Hontz
Medium: Pastels
Paper: Canson Mi-Teintes
Size: 28 × 36 cm (11″ × 14″)

The subject of the portrait is my good friend Ron Hontz. He (along with two other friends) introduced me to pastels so it was only fitting to do his portrait using the medium.

I experimented a lot on this portrait, one of which is on the background. I wanted to try a more “creative” and different background instead of a plain one or a simple gradient. I’m not sure I like this one better, but the cloudy effect has inspired other ideas, which I hope to use on other pastel paintings.

Also, the skin tone was based on other pictures as his was a little too reddish in my reference picture.

I am not too happy with the way this portrait turned out, however — a lot of the colors are dulled down and I would have liked a more realistic effect to it. Anyhow, I still have a number of pencil portraits that I’ll try to finish first, but I wish to practice and concentrate more on pastel paintings afterwards, particularly on portraits and landscapes.

Thank you for looking!

Faith

I have never seen snow in real life. So on this pastel painting, I mostly relied on my imagination and what I can remember of pictures of winter that I have seen before. Working from imagination allows me to use a “looser” approach. It is a contrast to working on portraits from photos where I strive to be as detailed and realistic as I could. I find it quite refreshing to change styles (and subjects) once in a while .

This pastel painting is on 12.7 x 17.7 cm (5″ x 7″) Canson paper. The sky area required a little more work than the rest — it started out very rough — but I greatly enjoyed layering the soft light blue, violet, and white on the snow area . I managed to scan it twice as I was working on it. I have included these scans below.

Faith