Water portraits

Zena Holloway - Underwater

Breathtaking (really) photographs...
Would wanna see more baby/ child portraits personally. Less posed perhaps.
I do enjoy looking at the posed compositions as well.
I would look for the "The Water Babies" book when it comes out. Will be a good buy.

Portrait Project Final

Here it is. The portrait of James May has been finally completed.

It took me a long time to finish it, but the actual time that was spent couldn't have been more than 10 hours.

I'm still not sure if it's "done". But you have to let it go, or it would never be "done".

My other concern was, does it look like him? Again, I don't know anymore. I've been staring at it for way too long...

I should add his photo.

I should just move on and leave it alone.

I'm trying to decide what to draw/paint/make next.

Portrait Project #3

Another 1.5 hours or so have been spent.


Mostly added shadow and more volume to the hair at the top (higher hair!).


The hair needs much more work. I'm not sure what more I can do to the actual face, other than refining the details and smoothing the overall surface.

Portrait Project #2

I put another few hours (about 2 hours) into the portrait last night.

I started putting colors down.

He has pink areas in the center of the face, but the rest is pretty much pasty white. I'm trying not to give the skin tone too much hue, but keeping it pale.

The feel of this piece will be classical, noble & quiet yet strong. So far, I see first three keywords being covered (well enough for this stage of the project), but not the last one. It is lacking the strong presence of the subject, which is the primary purpose of most portraits. Hopefully, as I layer more colors and add details, more character will be added.

The next step will be to put down more dramatic darks and lights. It might have been easier if I did this first, but I guess I got myself caught up in studying the skin tone. So, I'm going to make myself go back and work on that. A huge no-no in the traditional Japanese art principle. Darks and lights first, details later. Ya ya ya, I know this. I had too much fun doing the skin tone and two hours were passing by like crazed bike messengers downtown. Bad me.

The other thing I noticed is that his hair needs to be taller on the top. Depending on the photo you find of him, but his hair is usually done in the 80s rock star style, longish, biggish... Will fix that.

Because I'm not using a single photo as the reference, the process has been less simpler than eyeing and recreating what I see exactly. The hair would be a bit of trouble for me, I know. But can be fun at the same time.

Stay tuned and follow the progress.

Portrait Project #1

I've decided that I want to do a portrait as my next project. It would be a classical portrait with the oil painting-like look and feel.

The subject is a British TV personality, James May. Me and Sidney are huge Top Gear fans, and it was just natural for me to pick one of the hosts as the subject of my project.

I have begun drawing out a rough comp, trying to decide on the composition. So this is the very first stage of the project.

The next stage would be to start putting colors down. I think I would do the face first, then depending on how it looks I will decide what sort of clothes to put him in. Right now, I'm thinking 1800s sea captain outfit with standing collars and a bow, but I may change my mind later. It will be some kind of sea captain outfit because of James May's nickname, "Captain Slow".

I will be posting the progress of this project.