Wednesday, April 25, 2018

Portrait Demo at the Yellow Barn Workshop

On Sunday night we had a sold-out audience for my mini-workshop at the Yellow Barn Studio in Glen Echo Park, Maryland.


After my lecture presentation, I did a half-hour gouache portrait. My model was Steve Hanson, who was wearing a reproduction antique vest and coat. Steve has portrayed John Brown in a historical reenactment at Harper's Ferry.


I used a limited palette of gouache: Light Red by Shinhan Pass, plus Yellow OchreUltramarine BlueIvory Black, and Titanium White (M. Graham) in a Pentalic watercolor journal.

I did my preliminary lay-in with a Brown Caran d' Ache watercolor pencil and I finished up with a White Supracolor pencil for those few stray beard hairs and other accents.
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Thanks, J. Jordan Bruns and Gavin Glakas for organizing the event, and to model Steven Hanson.

4 comments:

Susan Krzywicki said...

You must be used to people watching you create....but it sure seems like it would be stressful!

James Gurney said...

Susan, what makes it less stressful was knowing that the audience was filled with fellow artists who understood the challenges.

Geoff said...

James, thanks so much for joining us at the Yellow Barn -- and thanks for signing my copy of your dinosaur paintings in "Scientific American"! Your two presentations elaborated nicely on some of the themes you've developed here at your blog: challenging traditional conceptions of how the eye travels around pictures, and educating us on how people recognize faces.

And I loved your portrait demo. Readers of this blog may not realize that James painted that lovely portrait in about half an hour, maybe less. Impressive!

Anyway, thanks again for taking the time to speak to us!

Tim Weedlun said...

Thanks, James, for sharing your wisdom and talent with us at the Yellow Barn. Thank you also for pointing out the work of some academic painters and Golden Age illustrators I'd not heard of. I look forward to reading your "Color and Light" book.