Painting People

I enjoy painting people.  And I use the term "enjoy" loosely, since it can be a very frustrating process, especially if I rush the drawing stage, or ignore it completely.  But when I take my time and it goes well it is quite satisfying.  I think it's the challenge of it that attracts me to it.

The painting above was quite fun.  I really took my time with the drawing stage, but I still feel that I should have spent even more time on it.

After penciling it all in, I added watercolor in layers to build up depth, and then added the ink at the very end for contrast.

I love the look of watercolor and ink, although a lot of purists would say that it is technically not a "watercolor" anymore.

I made two prints from this painting.  One for the couple shown on the left and their daughter beside them, and one for the couple in the middle and their two boys (and dog).  Craig and I, shown at the right, get to keep the original painting :)

Shown above are the next two people paintings I have on the go.  My sister's boyfriend and their daughter at the top, and my sister and her daughter (at a younger age) on the bottom.

When I draw people, I like to use a grid to get the proportions right.  I usually draw an X over the whole picture, and then split each side into four sections, no matter what size I'm using.  If I need extra definition, I'll put an extra X in each of the four quadrants.

I then lightly pencil in the same grid on the paper, and then draw in the outlines of any critical details of the picture.  I usually run the eraser lightly over the whole thing when I'm done, so that the pencil doesn't show through the lighter areas of paint.

It's hard to see the faint pencil lines in the pictures above, but I've got the grids drawn and I'm ready to start drawing the people.