lemon's painting - step by step

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some people wrote me to tell about my paintings,
my inspiration, etc

but as a highly visual person there is not much to say about that,
except that i see painting as a free medium where i'm not bond to
regular everyday rules and that i'd like to inspire people to do great things
in there lives.


it's just because i'm so free that it doesn't need any words or any explanation,
so for long conceptual talking i'm not the right person i guess...

on the other hand, i can talk for hours about my paintings, about the light especially, the transformations it goes throught etc

so i thought, let's photograph a painting while i'm working on it, and see what happens

and maybe someone enjoys watching it ...
(till now the painting is still not finished)

step 1




maybe it's a pity i didn't start taking pictures from the very start, but maybe if you like it i can do that in the future with another one.
notice how the eye really needs some correction here

i was also not satisfied with the shape of the 'headstructure'

and the skin will gradually change, until now i'm still looking for the right colour,
and must say that i did like the red of the first here a little more than the pink i have now, well we'll see

step 2

step 3





as you can see i have changed a bit more of the headstructure, and the changing of the skin has began,
it is also a little smoother, not because i liked it so much smoother but because everytime there was an irregularity it seemed to disturb as if it was a real boss or hole and i was obsessing a little over it (until now actually, but maybe it is nice because it has also a little bit of a metal-quality)

Last edited by lemon on 04 Apr 2007, 2:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.

step 4




here we have the skin on the chin modified, so the red is disappearing, which i regret actually, in the next one it will be even worse (yeah, life of a painter ...)
it's also the last painting with this keyhole shape, cause someone interpreted this as a 'we are looking at her'-thing and i meant it to be a 'she is looking at us'-thing

Last edited by lemon on 04 Apr 2007, 3:08 pm, edited 2 times in total.

step 5



and here is the unfortunate skin-change...
also the transformation of the shape, first i wanted to repeat the pattern all around,
but then i was pleased with the intermediate effect and figured it would be boring to have the same pattern all around. so i started to finish it in this way, with which i'm still quite pleased

so next thing i'll be working on is definetly the skin, i also reshaped the mouth and don't know whether that's such a happy thing either,
it still needs reflexion

hope you enjoyed it so far...

I like the way the face becomes more detailed as the painting progresses. There is a 'jump' between stage 4 and 5 that makes the face more feminine, more 'friendly'if I can put it that way. The changes in the lips and the skintone seem to do that. I am looking forward to seeing what will happen to her next

That's beautiful!

(quick break from Homework)

I think they look cool, did you make the one in your avatar too?

Hey, do it again!

(I still can't use styles or smilies or select text.)

That's a good tutorial. But I think if the goal is to teach others how to paint, it fails because most people probably can't do step 1 in the first place. You've just given some details, which are indeed important for a painter to develop skills. But I'd like to see one of your paintings from scratch. Maybe an idea for the future.

hey thanks all! nice to read your comments!
in fact it's interesting for me too, cause it's the first time i see what i did before, normally only seeing the end-result.

i agree that i should have started earlier, but only came up with the idea when it was too late,
i'll do it again with the next painting (but not a lot of time to paint for the moment)

not that i meant it as a tutorial, it's just the idea of evolution that seemed interesting,
but if you'd want it maybe i could do a tutorial one too.

although i do not really paint in a conventional way, in fact i just start and do something and improve it all the time, everytime i see something that displeases me i'll correct it.
(sometimes i'll need photographs of faces to see what the possibilities are, like when there is something wrong with the nose i'll ask myself 'how does a nose finish at the end actually? and i'll look it up, watch people and try to understand what is missing in my painting)

so the first time it would be like a head too large, eyes not at the same height (that you can still see in the step 1 to 2) , or mark the ears far too small in 2,3 and 4. so i do long observations and notice there is something wrong, and don't always know what, is it the light?some shape? some relation between certain things? etc.

This is great! It's like your painting is alive...it's breathing and changing with your every stroke...

Hehe, you need a Bob Ross Youtube video. "Ok, and over here I have some happy little cubes and lines I'm painting with this ocre...isn't it a beautiful little ocre? And over here I've got some warm little squigglies...". That would be pimp, and seriously - I would take notes .

happy little cubes ?


thanks sunnycat, that's a nice way of seeing it !

for the moment the changing of the skin is not going well, i am doing the eyebrows again but removed a little too much, so i need to find the right track again (i always have this ups and downs, i'm not worried (yet))

will post it when it's getting better. (i have taken some pictures of the several layers i tried on the skin, the current state is like as if she has some dried clay or plaster on her face, i'm also considering whether i'll change from acrylpaint to oil) and i don't find the right colour for the skin, now it is rather white.

that's an interesting approach...i always grew up and was told that you should just do your art pure to what you see it as and not worry about how others judge it because no one will understand it the same as you unless you put an explanation with it. which...explanations aren't always bad but sometimes they take the magic and personal (to the viewer) meaning out of the art.