Jane Coram's pics

[Jane Coram]

Right round two.

I've centred the image because he wasn't in the middle and made the canvas 20cm x 22cm as that is a good aspect ratio for a portrait.

Building up the hair.

Hair is a bit of a devil to get the hang of, but once you suss it out, it's not too hard. Have a look at anyone's hair and you'll see that it's built up of quite a few different colours. I'm looking at my daughter Melissa's and she's got an underlying very dark brown, which is almost black. Never use pure black on a computer generated image or a real oil painting for that matter, except on the pupil of the eye, because it's disastrous for all sorts of reasons.

See sheet below on how to build up the hair. I'm using basic dark brown with a very slight reddish tint to it.

[Jane Coram]

Now use the smudge tool again to smooth down the hair, making sure you go in the direction of the pen strokes on the original drawing. It will start to look more like hair. Try varying the size of the smudge tool. If you have too big a size it will just drag the 'paint' across is a big blur. Play around to see how the different brush sizes affect the results. I usually use about a 17 - 21 pixel smudge tool for this stage.

[Jane Coram]

Really, it's just a case of building it up layer by layer now until you get the right effect. Always use the darker colours first, then put a lighter shade on, then go back and put a bit more dark on, and alternate between the two. Sounds odd, but it works.

Try using different brushes to see which works best. If it was a real oil painting, I'd use a very dry fairly stiff brush that splays out a bit to do the bulk of the hair. You can get the equivalent Photoshop brushes.

Don't worry too much about where the roots are touching the flesh at the moment, that can be sorted out later. we need to sort out the flesh colour underneath before twiddling with that.

After you've done the darker shades, you need to put on the highlights. Make sure you re-check where the light source is coming from and use the sketch to help. Then using the colour picker, just go for a lighter shade of the hair colour and do exactly the same thing, on the areas where the hair would be reflecting the light a bit more.

The secret is really to try different brushes, different opacities, lots of different shades of browns and blacks, alternating between light and dark, smaller brushes and larger, building up layer upon layer of hairs. It stops the hair looking flat and lifeless.

Then we put the final highlights on.

[Jane Coram]

Final highlights and finishing the hair.

I won't finish it off totally until I've done the rest of the face, but you can see how it's going.

The highlights are a pain, but it doesn't work without them. Pick a very light colour, just off of white, or a very pale lemon in this case, and a one pixel brush.

Yep. One pixel. You can be a devil and go up to 2 if you want.

Paint on the individual hairs where the highlights are. Curve them to the shape of the hair, but they don't need to be pristine, because you are going to smudge them in a bit. Don't smooth them in too much, you still want to be able to see them.

Finally, use white and do just a few more for the very strong highlights, and off black for the shadows, still using a 1 pixel brush.

[ChrisGeorge]

Hello Jane love

Excellent work as usual, Jane. And wonderful to get some insight into your work methods. Keep up the fine work.

Chris

[Phil Carter]

Hello Jane,

It still stuns me to see what you do to make these so brilliant! I am in total awe. I am in total agreement with Chris. Sheer genius.

best wishes

Phil

[Jane Coram]

That's actually the worst over. It's much easier from here on in.

We need to do something with his skin now. This is where we start making it actually look like him. The sketch makes him look rather worried and harassed. Understandably so. The painting at the moment is too placid and youthful looking. That's mainly due to the eyebrows not being right, and there not being enough shading over the face.

Believe it or not, there is actually a fair bit of green in people's flesh tones. The secret to getting realistic flesh is to put quite a few different colours into a person's skin tones. That's true of any kind of painting, especially oils.

I've started off by darkening up the shadows and the background.

I've also tidied up his eyebrows and nose a bit. They won't look the right shape until more shading has gone on.

[Jane Coram]

Next we have to use the airbrush to soften the whole thing up.

choose a warmish flesh colour to go over the top. You can knock it back later, so don't worry if it makes him look a bit rosy.

Use the largest brush size you can for the bit of the face you are doing. You can obviously use a fairly big one on the cheeks and large areas, but just go down in size for the more twiddly bits. Use a very soft edged brush and a very low opacity, because you can always go over it again. Don't worry if you go over the background a bit, but avoid going over the hair if you can. Doesn't matter if you do, just hit the 'undo' button and have another go.

This should give you a much softer overall effect.

Now pick an olivey green and do the same thing, but at a very, very low opacity, or he'll end up looking like the Incredible Hulk.

I've just darkened the background and clothes a bit to start them off.

Now I'm going to have some tuna pasta bake and I might do a bit more later!!
Hugs

Jane

xxxx

[Jane Coram]

Hi Chris and Phil,

It's taken me longer to work out how it's done than actually doing it.
I'll probably just finish it off now and post that up, as there really isn't much more to it now, just carrying on in the same way, building up layer after layer until you get fed up with it. Now I've actually broken down how it's done, I think it's a damn sight easier painting in oils!!!

Much love

Janie

xxxx

[Normy]

Hi Jane
Really really good work there and lots of it!
Have you tried setting a new layer to 'Multiply' in Photoshop?
If you have a black line illustration (RGB mode) on a layer below and colour on the layer above set to 'Multiply' it will allow you to colour up to the black line but not over it, black will always remain above or dominant.
It makes it a bit easier to colour some hatched areas or not having to be so careful going up to edges of black.

Keep them coming, they're great.

Normy

[Natalie Severn]

Hi Jane,
Terrific work ----as always Jane! I think I am going to print out your excellent guide and try it out though it must take ages to become as expert as you---what a talent !Glad you are still painting in oils----so am I but just at present I am not concentrating on the East End.
All the Best
Norma

[Suzi]

Hi Janey
Great to see you're still doing the works!!!
Too damned complicated for me though- still doing my crazy collages here!
Good to hear you're still painting Norma .....well that's painting Norma not 'painting Norma' hehe
Suz xxxxx

[Suzi]

Was going to post some of my new Bucks Row collages- but have no attachment access!

[Suzi]

OK now cheers

This first one oddly reminds me of a music hall/ cinema


Where's those background buildings from?


My Durward St deeds get involved here




There are more on the Buck's Row lot- moving onto Mitre Sq as I type

Suz x

[Rubyretro]

Very interesting Suzi -I like them alot.

My hobby (which I made into a Business at one point) used to be 'découpage',
and I'm very interested in the History of Art and Modern Art in general, and so I used to express myself doing collages too. These 'speak to me' because I'm very interested in History and 'stories' too..and I used to incorporate old family photos and engravings from the 19th century in my collages.

Sadly, I don't think I have any left now -I either sold them, or presented them to my Family as presents at Christmas !

ps I did some things using similar shapes to you , and cutting up M C Escher prints and then reassembling them to get different mathamatical effects to Escher from the same base, as it were..