I’ve totally contradicted myself with this new painting, which I’ve creatively titled “Mustached Man in a Hat,” 30 x 20 inches, oil on canvas. In previous blog posts I said that some of my best paintings are the quickest, and that speed was big factor. But none of that applied to this painting. I finished the first layers (grisaille) quickly, but I wasn’t happy with it and decided to slowly apply an oil layer with a wax medium in more accurate skin tones.

My goals for this painting at the beginning were to:

• Determine two or three main focal points and restrict detail to those areas.

• Reference the accuracy of my values more with the source photo.

• Keep to a more consistent range of monochrome.

Focal Points

One aspect that drew me to this source photo on the Museum app, was that the eyes weren’t the main focal point like in most portraits. Focal points are generally areas with the most detail; strongest contrast between lights and darks; and the strongest hues. I felt that the focal points for Mustached Man in a Hat would be the ear, the wrinkles around the eye, and the mustache/mouth area. I worked these areas more, but kept the outlying areas simple.

Values

I took much more time and patience to double check the paint on my palette knife with the value on the source photo. I hold the palette knife loaded with paint in front of the photo and blur my eyes a bit to see how much the paint stands out. I adjust until my eye can’t see the difference and then I apply the paint to the canvas. My patience paid off with this painting as the values and hues match the source photo well.

Check out the extended timelapse video of the painting process below:

Monochrome

Here’s where I had a change of heart. My original plan was to create a monochrome rendition. I planned to work quickly in alla prima (wet-on-wet) and use a mix of magenta and blue hues. But when I finished the monochrome or grisaille layer, I wasn’t satisfied, and I really felt the urge to do a skin colour layer in wax. I gave in to my impulse, and I’m glad I did. The painting looks much better. For the final layer, I used a minimalist palette of Gamblin oil colours (yellow ochre, alizarin crimson, sap green, phthalo turquoise). Lately, I’ve just been using titanium white as my white. For the wax medium, I used the cold wax medium by Gamblin.

Every painting is a chance to improve on my skills and process. Usually when I finish a painting, I have a few disappointments, things I missed or thought I could do better. This dissatisfaction is a good thing, though, because it leads to questions and ideas for what to try on the next painting. I don’t think I’ll ever be a perfect painter (nor would I want to be, that seems boring), the reward comes with steady improvement with each painting, trying new things and practicing. That goes for any form of creative expression, including my writing. If you try to be perfect, you’ll never do anything. Just try to improve slightly from the last thing you made.

If you’re interested in purchasing this painting or wish to commission your own custom original fine art oil portrait, please feel free to shoot me a message at the button below or visit my Commission page for more information.