Look

If you have drawn a small sketch and want the painting to be larger, or if you have a small photo and want to make a larger sketch to paint, then you should learn how to do a graph or grid for this purpose. You can find videos and explanations of how to do this on the internet. I will tell you the basics. Always start by finding the center. Find the middle from the long and short sides and draw a straight line both ways on the photo or sketch. Where they cross will be the center. Precisely measure one inch from these lines and add more lines in a checkerboard fashion, being sure to always double check the measurements. Now decide how big you want your final painting to be and make the distance between the lines increase by the correct amount. For instance, if your sketch is 8×10 and you want your painting to be 16×20, then the distance from one line to the other will be two inches instead of the one inch you started with. You can see that I also connect the diagonals too.

Now look at your original photo or sketch. Starting with any feature, draw on the larger graph a mark in a square or triangle that exactly matches the smaller one, just remember to make it the increased size. If you are careful to follow the pattern and not confuse the placement of your marks, then you proportions and likeness should be good.

First step is to apply the mixture to the canvas with the back side of a pallet knife. This puts a thin amount in evenly spaced areas.

The bold type was annoying me and I guess it will post that all as the title.🤪 Now, for those of you who don’t know how to pre coat a canvas for a portrait, I will download some photos to show you how I do it. I mix burnt umber and French ultra marine till I get the degree of gray/brown that I want. As you will see in the photos that I will post, I apply this mixture with an even covering, being sure to fill in all the white.

I will download the photos tomorrow so you can check this then. I just want you to know that I am going to try to keep you posted on the progress of my next painting. If you watch carefully and read the blog, you should be able to learn a lot about my process. Shalom.

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As I told you in my last post, life has intervened and I am unable to continue with the video. I am hoping that in the near future I will come up with a plan to make it available. Bruce was recently hospitalized with blood clots in both lungs and now I have some health issues too. We are dealing with these things but they sure do take time. I have not put time in my painting for most of the spring and that is totally unacceptable for me. The summer is already stacking up as a very busy one with visits from a sister and some other dear loved ones. As I work on some of my art, I will try to post the progress because I don’t like to keep you uninformed about the studio work.

For several years I have been heading toward more commissions and fewer shows. There are some signs that may be happening. I will keep you posted. Shalom, Diana

Hello and happy spring to all of my friends and the followers of this blog.  I don’t like to waste a lot of your time describing personal issues but I do want to give you a little information about the video I have been telling you about recently.  Yes, It was suggested to me by a student and friend and hesitantly I proceeded. I was getting fairly comfortable with the process and beginning to become slightly more confident because of my friend’s encouragement and positive outlook. Then life intervened.  My friend and his wife moved away and my sister in law began more than a year of declining health until in October when she passed away.  Work on this video process continued but it was becoming more difficult for me because some other family difficulties arose in the same time frame as my sister in law’s illness. This is a long term issue as are the medical changes that I have experienced at the same time. Both will need continual management and I hope to deal with them in a positive way. For now though, I do not have the energy to move forward on the video.  I hope that this is not the end of the project but I must pull out for the time being.  I do offer my sincere apologies and I ask your forgiveness for opening the possibility and then not being able to carry through. If I get all things in order to where I can proceed, I will be sure to let you know.  Until then, keep looking at work in progress as I post.  May you have a blessed Holy Week as we observe the feasts that our Messiah experienced as he faced His sacrifice.  Shalom

There always seem to be glitches. I have been working for two years on a simple video. So many events and problems slowed it down, including time and space. Now that we have finished the production it seems like other problems have interfered with the publishing. I am hoping to make it available on YouTube but the path through cyber space is a tricky one. I don’t want to make it available if there is not an easy route to view it. Yesterday I tried to make a blog post to tell you how it is coming along but no matter how I tried, I could not get my web site to allow me to post. My husband and I have worked all day to get this fixed. I think we have this latest glitch worked out. Maybe soon I will feel free to release the video. I have kept the price at a minimum because I am not an expert at making videos and there have been quite a few things which threatened to collapse the whole idea. But I know so many people who are looking forward to the information and demonstration, so I continued on. I do hope that you will find the different approach to portrait painting helpful and usable. Listen carefully to all the footage because there are hints and advice the whole way through. Take the information and work with it, practice it, develop it. This process will only be useful to you if you make it part of your process and use it regularly. I do not want to scrap the entire project so I will try to get it wrapped up shortly. Thank you all for your patience.

I will add a full photo of this when I get it finished. I’m hoping I can complete it to enter in the Allied Artists Show. I just thought you would like to see some of the progress.

The video keeps getting delayed. It has been a challenge working on it with my friend long distance. Now he and his wife are even further away and we have had other interruptions; my health, their travels and more health issues. We will eventually get it ready and then I will post an announcement. Thanks so much for your interest. Till then, enjoy the art!

Southwestern Pennsylvania Council for the Arts

I have always considered the People’s Choice to be the top award in art. It tells me that people are looking closely and that the work really touches the public.  I am honored to accept this years People’s Choice Award for the Southwestern Pennsylvania Coucil for the Arts at the SAMA in Ligonier.  I want to sincerely thank all those who voted for this painting.  I am humbled and grateful.  I will post an image even though I am sure you have seen it here before. 

By the way, I may be finalizing the video today. 

Making this video has been like packing my luggage for a trip around the world.  For almost two years now, my friend and I have been working long distance, gathering the necessities to make this journey. We have been refining it the way someone would who will board an airplane which has weight limits and other restrictions. We know certain things are absolute must haves but others will be pared down so that we are not including so much as to make the traveling cumbersome. We made a quick decision to follow through on this and we did not have time to do advance preparations or even to plan our itinerary. Once our decision was made, it was full speed ahead to our destination. All that remains is to see how the journey will go and if the result will be creative and restorative. As soon as my friend uploads everything we have packed, we will announce our take – off. I am hoping our “Portrait Painting for Beginners” will have a successful flight. I want to keep the cost low so that it can be available to many. I will give you the information about Pay Pal as soon as everything else is complete. I always pray before setting off on any journey and I have prayed my way through this part too. Now I pray that my efforts will be a blessing to all who invest in it.  Thank you.

You may be interested in knowing that I hope to update this whole web site in the spring.  This was my first attempt and I know it will make things easier and more pleasant if I can get it looking better.  As I have told you before, technology is not my thing but I try.  I really want to spend more time on my art but I have learned that part of being an artist is sharing.  I don’t like to put my work on Facebook because there are people on public forums who are not interested in the same things I am so why bore them with my stuff even though many have asked me to do this.  My compromise is to share it on my blog.  That way, only those who chose to enter here, need look. 

Also, the video is almost wrapped up.  Yah’s timing is good because the videographer is moving out west.  It has taken us much longer to produce this than anticipated for a number of reasons.  It is my hope that there will be many who can benefit from the instructions and hints I give in these basic lessons.  An artist must take what they learn and what they see and what inspires them and use it all to come up with their own interpretation.  If I can learn to produce worthy portraits, then with time and patience and a measure of talent, so can others.  I will post on here and in public when it is available. 

When the decision was made to try the video there was no time to spare.  I grabbed the subject references that I was about to use for a class and began.  We were pressed for time and then separated by hours but since people were asking for this, we proceeded.  I did my best to get in all the relevant information.  If you use this, and practice, hopefully you will have some amount of success the first try and get better as you go.  That is how I learned.

Well, for now, I will go paint.  Shalom, Diana

To all of you who follow this site to learn portrait painting, I try to post a hint or two when I face a certain problem myself.  I am doing a double portrait of my two youngest daughters. I have always loved the image but the photo is too blurry to print and hang it.  Recently I saw something similar at a museum in Ohio and I decided that this pose is much more interesting.  If I could just get the likenesses right it could be a beautiful painting. Here is the problem I have had.  In the image, my daughter’s face is so blurry I cannot see her features well.  I gathered all the photos I could find from those years and studied them carefully.  I made the sketches and was satisfied.  Actually, I thought they were pretty good for putting photos together.  After I got the sketch transferred and the grisaille finished I began to think something was wrong.  When a likeness is really good but you know something isn’t right, it can be very difficult to figure what the problem is.  Finally, it hit me.  It was as plain as the nose on her face, literally! I had gotten the bottom of her nose too close to her top lip.  That made her nose too long and her smile didn’t work either.  All these problems in spite of the fact that the characteristics were drawn correctly as far as likeness but just not proportional.  Later, I will post a photo.  Right now, I should go make supper.  Diana

I have been working on a project for many months, actually at least a year and a half. It all began when I gave some lessons to a friend so he could paint his grandchildren. He was so impressed that he offered his skills as a videographer to do a how to video as a thank you for my teaching time. Sometimes projects have a way of going south and that is literally what happened.  Right in the middle of our efforts, my friend found it necessary to take a job opportunity far south of here.  We have been struggling long distance to complete this ever since. I didn’t say too much about it before this because every time we think we are about to wrap it up, something blows our timing out of the water.  Again, literally.  The hurricane of this summer, I can’t think of which name, there were so many, came along and blew my friends to Chicago and then Colorado! Delay, delay, but it was all good, since we had no deadlines. I do have a lot of friends waiting for this, though, and I am happy we are getting close.  Do not expect perfection.  As I tell you in the intro, we have been working under extreme conditions and time constraints and besides, I am not too good in front of a camera. Now I have the privilege of announcing to you the soon to be available video.  If you are interested in learning my method and watching me demonstrate, I hope you will consider a pay pal purchase.  My friend is getting that set up for us since we never had a pay pal account previously.  I hope all this is ready in a few weeks.  I am making my all out effort.  I am trying to keep the cost minimal.  We will see how it goes.  I will post here as soon as it is available.  THANKS FOR YOUR INTEREST, DIANA

I decided I should take the time now to upload a couple more images of work in progress.  If I leave it go till later It will be a while for you to wait and you should see these in between stages.  Sometimes I get so carried away with the work, I forget to let you in on what is happening.  By the way, I must spend some time this month finishing up the video!!!

Thirty five years ago our family hosted an AFS student from Venezuela. From the minute we read her profile we knew she was joined to our family in a way none of us could explain. We just knew she was part of us.  It became our tradition to take Typical American Family photos and we are happy we have these.  Nelly is in the middle second row from top and her daughter, Andrea is bottom left.  I am sure you can see and feel the joy we are experiencing. This photo will remind us of this wonderful visit until the next time we get together.  Hallelu Yah.

Here is an image of my recent painting that is a little better photo.  It is difficult to get a good photo of this one because the image is very dark and the camera wants to capture the detail of the canvas which detracts from the painting image.  So, this isn’t bad.  I am working on so many other works and I hope to make a lot of progress this winter and spring.  I will try to make time to blog about it all as I proceed.  My daughter wants me to update my website and I hope to do this but it all takes time away from my painting.  I also promised a lot of friends that I would do a class.  I think I will have a busy time besides all the doctor’s visits I have to try to keep my health on track.  So, for now, I will finish this message.  I hope all of you artists and friends are having a good winter.  I wish you well in all you are doing.  Many hugs, Diana

I can’t think of a better way to wrap up a very challenging year than with the birth of our first great grand daughter, (we have four great grand sons already). Our very first grandchild now has a daughter of his own, with this eight pound girl being born on December 27. His wife and baby are well and they are all quite happy. I would so love to be making portraits of this little one but she is not nearby as her daddy is serving our nation in the military.

I have been working on a still life for my art group meeting in January. I have wanted to paint more still life paintings but usually cannot make myself abandon my portraits. I will try to attach a photo before I post this but the painting is not quite finished.

I am working on two large paintings and a small portrait of my grandson. I still have the miniatures in progress and I should finish a landscape I began last year. I have a lot of doctor appointments lined up and my dear friends hope I will start a class soon. I am thankful I am well enough to continue my work.

We are looking forward to a visit with our AFS daughter and her daughter will be with her. This week I got up the courage to clean the portrait I did of this girl when she lived with us so many years ago. It was really dirty but I realized it had never been varnished so I was reluctant to clean it with solvents, no matter how mild. I got up my courage and used a moistened towel wrapped around my finger and I cleaned a small area at a time. The grime and dirt came off and it looked great. I definitely don’t recommend this procedure to anyone but it seems to have worked fine for me. Then I brushed the surface with polycrylic. This is the stuff that made me so ill last year. I made the room warm and then opened the windows for plenty of ventilation but that made the surface dry too fast and I had nasty brush marks that I couldn’t smooth out. I asked my husband for his finest sand paper to carefully knock off the highest parts, then varnished it again. It took four layers but the final one is perfect. I am thinking Nelly will want to take this home with her. We are really looking forward to their visit.

Well, I am going to try to add the photo of the still life. Later this week, if I can find time, I will post some of the other work I am doing. Till then, hugs and Shalom, Diana.

Everything I touch today has turned to mud, although I am pleased with my first pass on this new painting entitled SISTERS.  Even here on my blog, I opened it this evening, hoping to relax and communicate with all my friends, but instead I find that everything has changed.  I used up half an hour trying to put in a new photo and finally got it.  Then, I tried this typing and it keeps throwing up blocks or some strange information that is not helpful at all.  I will try to stumble on but even starting a new paragraph causes me headaches.   I have no idea what has messed this up but it will not let me start a new paragraph so I will just run all my sentences together. Sorry.  The summer has been full of challenges. I don’t want to list a bunch of problems here so let me just say that I have not been working continually, for many reasons, and now when I am trying to get back to work, stuff keeps getting in my way, now, even my word press blog is not responding. Anyway, today I could not seem to get into this new painting.  Hours went by with one interruption after another and finally I just decided I was going to get started with the sketch transfer, no matter what happened.  This is a job that should not be stopped in the middle.  By the time I got my work set up and ready to go, my hands were shaking badly.  They still are.  I am surprised I got the work this far. But this is the place in the process where it is important to get the likenesses.  For this painting, the photo references are very blurry but I have always loved this image.  I searched through many photos of my two youngest girls to find what would help me get good sketches as close as possible to the original.  I have worked on the sketches for weeks.  When transferring, the likenesses must be done with precision.  Having a case of tremors does not help.  Once the transfer is made, I like to use a soft sable brush to turn lines into planes.  This is where I begin to finess the skin tones. Yes, I start planning the end of the painting from this early beginning.  So, I did not complete the bottom of the painting but I can tell already that I have what I need. 

I am going to tell you now about something I have been working on for nearly two years.  I was sharing my painting process with a new acquaintance who wanted to paint his grandchildren.  He was so impressed with what he was learning that as a thank you he offered to help me film a video.  I was certain I would never be able to do my work under the scrutiny of a camera but I gave it some concideration because many of my students have asked me to provide this learning tool.  In my early years of portrait painting I too wished I could have the benifit of watching a talented artist do their most detailed work. So my friend and I began the ardous task of filming and editing.  Had we realized when we started that the videographer would move out of state in the middle of the process, we probably would never have begun. Now, as we finalize the last portions and make decisions about how to market the video, I decided it was time to give you a heads up.  I am hoping this Portrait Painting for Beginners will be ready for you to access shortly after the first of the year.  I am hoping to market it through You Tube.  I will let you know as soon as I can. 

We are coming to the end of 2018, almost two decades into the millennium. The last two shows were at SAMA in Loretto and the Southwestern Pennsylvania Counsel for the Arts at SAMA in Ligonier.  To say they were both well attended would be an understatement.  My previous season’s entries for each of these shows held the award for People’s Choice and so this was how the award presentations started for this year.  My entries for now have a wonderful place for exhibition and will hang into the new year.  I am planning to focus on growth as I have at other times in my career.  Since this year has been filled with many personal challenges, illness and loss I have lost momentum with my art.  I want to spend a lot more time painting and enjoying the process.  I hope you all can do the same.

I cannot make that an all inclusive statement but I can state that artists gather together to share their love of art and also to share the company of other artists! Today I listened to a two hour pod cast of great interest to me because of the content and because of the artist whom I admire greatly.  I won’t mention any names because I don’t want to swamp him. I will use this blog to send a big hug, a big thank you and a shout out to him at his studio or home so far from here.  I sent him a note today by email.  Later, when I checked my web site, he had checked in and looked at my site.  I sure hope he was not disappointed at what he saw.  Again, a huge thank you.  You are a great inspiration to me.  And it means a lot to have you share your life philosophy so that others get a sense of true communication with you. With the amount of views your site receives, I am honored to have you even open my web site and take a look.  May you and your family receive many blessings.  Diana