Work in Progress - Portrait of Corporal Cole Bartsch

Corporal Cole Bartsch-Work in Progress
Work in Progress-Stage 2

This is the second stage of the painting with all areas roughly blocked in with the approximate colours. At this stage there's no detail and I'm not too fussy about getting exact colours, my goal is to get the canvas completely covered with paint and try to stay true to the oil sketch which ultimately gets covered up. I had an illustration assignment to do so I only had time to block in the background and shirt.

The next day after taking care of some business aspects of art (the part I don't particularly like) I added Cole's beret and got the first layer of paint on his face. Luckily the painting isn't dry yet so I can paint wet in wet which I prefer. I'll be fine tuning the colour and shapes, making sure that the drawing is accurate, adding details and the pattern to the uniform. It looks like I've wandered a bit from my oil sketch (see post from June 12) so I'll have to make some adjustments here and there.

We're painting from photos given to us by the families and most often the soldiers are dressed in civilian clothing and are in candid situations. It's necessary to delete backgrounds and other people from the photos and add what is needed like the beret and uniform. We paint a background that is flattering to skin tones, add the berets and uniforms, and pose them all in a similar manner so that the paintings will look like a cohesive unit when they're displayed together.

Cindy