1st Lesson - Portrait

Well, here is the first lesson on portraiture for my Friday class.  Their homework while I was OS was to draw up their canvases.  Everyone is doing their own portrait - mainly their children, except one of the ladies who has decided to paint Elizabeth Taylor.  I always start with the eyes to set the mood and direction of the portrait (also with my animal paintings).  Then before this lesson was finished, we quickly painted in a turpsy wash for the background to a. eliminate the large white canvas background, and b. to try and decide on a potential colour for the background.

Lesson No.8 - Painting Cows

We are painting one cow at a time.  Starting with the darks, I filled in the large shadow areas, then added the highlights and feathered them off into each other for a soft muted look.  I can then re-darken, sharpen, highlight and detail where needed.  The legs were a bit tricky as they were hidden behind grass, so where it was a bit unclear in the photo, we put in long grass.