Blue Key

Demonstration Three Painting The Child

Now We Come to the child, the blonde model which we have chosen, calling for the blue key palette presented on page 19. (See also the representation of this key in full color, page 82, and a typical portrait of the child, as painted with it, page 83.)

If you are going to paint a child one to three years old there is little help which anyone can give you. It is possible to get such a child's attention for only seconds at a time. Therefore, unless you are capable of storing in your mind sight impressions, the job will be very difficult. In my opinion it requires the greatest painting skill to catch on canvas a child so young. My advice is to start with older children and gradually work to the younger ones.

Don't try to make your task easy by painting a child's portrait from a photograph. It is next to impossible to get a lifelike quality in a painting when a photo is used; it usually looks like a tinted drawing. No matter how-exact and true the likeness, a portrait has no real value unless it is a fine painting—a work of art.

There is one legitimate exception to this rule against the use of photography: If you are painting a full figure, you can save your little model much posing by painting her apparel from a posed photograph.

Needless to say, children should be posed in the most natural way. The stereotyped poses appropriate for older people are not characteristic of children. Also, every al-tempt must be made to catch the evanescent, unselfconscious expression quite common to childhood, with the buoyancy, the clarity of skin, the fleeting smile or friendly grin so often seen in the young. Children lack patience so you must have it to spare. And children tire quickly so you cannot pose them for long. Between short poses let them rest by turning to other things.

As the features of children are rounded—the button nose is typical—no strong planes of tone exist as with the mature sitter. Lighting is therefore especially important; it should be arranged to force or key up any individualities of form so that they may be seen and caught.

The background color is also important; it must be right so as to play up the coloring of the youthful sitter. This can of course be adjusted by the artist at will. If his original background seems wrong in hue, he can change it either by adjusting the "props" behind the sitter, or in the painting itself. And don't hesitate to alter the colors of the youngster's clothes if they don't pleasingly set off his skin and hair colorings.

The eyes of the child are unusually large and expressive, so they must be located, shaped and colored with particular care. The child often has a lot of hair, too, the disposition and handling of which will play a big part in developing the sought-for likeness.

Speaking of location of eyes, if you look at a normal child from directly in front you will note that if you were to draw a horizontal line through his eyes this line would be about halfway between the bottom of the chin and the top of the head (exclusive of hair). With a mature woman this level of the eyes is relatively quite a bit higher, and in the case of the mature man it is higher still. If, from in front, you face a baby or very young child, a triangle formed to include the eyes, nose and mouth will be very small in relation to the entire head. With every added year this triangle will expand faster than the rest of the head, so that in full-grown people (men especially), the triangular mass of these features is much larger than in children.

While referring to the child, it might be well to point out that many young portraitists with professional aspirations get their start through the painting of children. Such an approach might interest you. It is obviously but seldom that the beginning artist will be commissioned to paint a man or a woman—especially a prominent one—because most people just wouldn't think of spending on an unknown artist the thousand dollars (and up!) which they often assume would be the fee for a portrait. Many young parents, however, proud of little Bob or Mary, would gladly pay a hundred dollars or two for a portrait which might be done in a few hours.

I knew one beginner who gained entree by approaching the parents of some attractive children, admitting he was well-trained but not thoroughly experienced, and asking permission to do the children for his own practice, making it clear that he would not urge the parents to buy the painting. The parents felt flattered and said yes. Pleased by the finished work, they asked whether or not he would consider parting with it for the modest amount which they felt they could afford—twenty-five dollars or so for each picture. He wisely accepted, and the parents became great boosters, and it wasn't long before his services were in demand. Gradually, as his reputation grew, he raised his prices. He soon discovered another source of income (and at an adequate scale of prices)—the doting grandparents of attractive children. These grandparents couldn't resist having them painted, not only once but at different periods of their development. So within a few years he was firmly established and able to take just those sitters, young or old, who appealed to him.

Yet as I have already mentioned, children are not easy to paint, especially if very young. Not only are they restless and impatient—forever on the move—but their roundness of figure, face and feature gives the artist less that is tangible to "get hold of" than we find in older people. So far as achieving a likeness is concerned, no sitter is so easy to interpret as the elderly man or woman with hollow cheeks, deep-etched wrinkles and other marks of time and stress, all of them highly individual. It's great fun to do these elderly people, but if one is seeking a market for portraits he won't find it, as a rule, among octogenarians. Even the grandparent patrons just mentioned are relatively rare. Yet I did hear recently of a septuagenarian who paid a generous fee for a portrait of himself and his wife on the occasion of their golden wedding anniversary. A man of means and social position, he had long wanted some family portraits but had always before failed to get around to them.

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