Building Art Skills For A Living
Around her are artists, some focus on the model's upswept hair and strong features. Another group concentrates on her body and limbs, using either strong strokes or soft shading. The concept of one painter from Crystal Lake is to imitate movement by superimposing watercolor images of the model's different poses across the canvas. She uses the group's weekly sessions to improve her figure drawing skills and other newer techniques that she rarely uses as a landscape artist.
People do not associate rigor and studiousness with art the way they do with music. She feels elated about how the work turned out, upon a quick inspection. Whether its hours of long labor or a quick practice session, greatness in portraiture can come, reaching out to the audience with the depth of human expression.
Portraits are the primary art form of another female artist, who returned to the group two years ago after devoting two decades of her life to the business sector. There has always been a special spot in her heart for portraits. The artist has a sixth sense about what the subject is feeling and gives his own interpretation on canvas. She paints the confident model using bold colors, dark green, blue, yellow and white, that other artists would hesitate to use.
The depth of art comes from the ability of an artist to look beyond face colors. In addition, the artist takes into account the effect of lighting on tone, cool ones like blues and greens and warm ones like yellows and whites. She says she is just attempting to ape the style of Renoir. In commissioned work, there are two methods, which are live sittings and photographs. For those with no time to spare sending a photograph is convenient, but a live sitting enhances the personality captured on canvas. One of art's greatest challenges is capturing personality on canvas. The challenge lies in capturing a personality that shows itself only momentarily. Though her portraits never lack in likeness, this is not her number one aim. It is the inner person that she strives to recreate, which makes the painting all the more special.
Another technique in portraiture is being able to accommodate the requests of the patron while staying true to one's own artistic leanings. Another trick is using vibrant colors to highlight the subject.