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Publisher's Note - Portrait Painting is an art which many would-be painters would like to tackle, whether they be amateurs or beginning students with professional aspirations. This is but natural, for a majority of us are far more interested in people than in landscape or baskets of fruit, and we prefer to paint the subjects which appeal to us the most. One can get a real thrill from creating on canvas a colorful likeness of his mother, his Uncle John, or his sweetheart across the street. And these sitters can share in the painter's enthusiasm; they are participants in his exciting pictorial adventures.

Author's Introduction - When Thk Beginning student makes his initial venture into the realm of portrait painting, several problems are likely to impress him as particularly formidable. First, he may be apprehensive as to his ability to obtain a satisfactory likeness of his sitter. Second, he wonders whether he can so vary his technical handling as to interpret competently such diversified types as the man, woman and child. And can he catch the coloring, both in light and shade, of the blonde, the brunette, the sun-tanned individual? And what of the distinguishing facial characteristics of such races as the Caucasian, Mongolian and Ethiopian?

01. Materials - The Materials needed by the beginner for portrait painting are but few, but these should be of excellent quality and carefully selected. If one wishes to learn the relative merits and faults of various kinds of materials he should refer to some of the standard technical treatises such as The Materials of the Artist and Their Use in Painting by Max Doerner (Harcourt, Brace); The Artist's Handbook of Materials and Techniques by Ralph Mayer (Viking); Painting Materials by Gettens and Stout (Van Nostrand); and Painters Question and Answer Book by Frederic Taubes (Watson-Guptill).

Part One - .....

02. Construction Method - When I First started to demonstrate portrait painting in the classroom and on the platform, I very naturally used the selection of colors on which I had long relied in my professional work—a "full" palette of sixteen or more separate paints. I had found this palette satisfactory for all the variegated colorings of every type and complexion of sitter.

03. Three Key Palette - Now We Come to the listing of the actual colors comprising each of the three key palettes. In some brands of paint you may not find exactly the names used below, for among manufacturers there is no absolute uniformity in nomenclature. But if you will turn to the reproductions on pages 42, 62 and 82, each picturing in full color one of our key palettes, you can see how each color should appear; then you should have little if any difficulty in buying paints to match. (A slight allowance can be made for the fact that printers' inks and artists' colors seldom possess precisely the same hues.)

04. Organize Palettes - In preparing any one of the palettes just listed, line your pure colors from the tube along the top (or around the curve) of a typical palette (of wood tone—not white) so as to leave ample mixing space. (See again color pages 42, 62 and 82. The palettes here reproduced, by the wav, were originally about twice the size—four times the area —of the reproductions.)

05. Terminology - If We Look analytically at any given color—the red of an apple, for instance—we discover that it possesses three outstanding qualities: hue, value and chroma.

Hue, in non-technical language, is that quality by which we recognize one color from another. We can state this as an equation: Hue = name. The apple is red; red is the hue or name of the color. We alter the hue of a color whenever we mix another color with it; if we mix yellow paint with red paint it gives us orange paint—this is a change in hue.

06. Method of Drawing - We used to be taught to make on our canvas a very careful charcoal drawing of the sitter. To preserve this as a guide for painting we would spray it with fixative or outline it with pencil or brush. This approach seems to me almost useless, for the first thing we did when we started to paint over such a drawing was to begin to paint it out, and we were always in fear of losing it.

07. Stages of Drawing - You Are Now ready for your work on canvas. We assume that you have selected a model much like our own and similarly lighted. Here are specific directions:

With a No. 8 flat bristle brush, mix on your palette a tint of cadmium red and viridian. (These two opposites will tend to neutralize each other.) Wipe your brush with a cloth to avoid carrying excess paint to the canvas. Boldly, yet thoughtfully, strike in two lines of movement.

08. Get a Likeness - The Method described to this point, and in the following directions, offers, I believe, the surest and by far the easiest way—if there is an easy way!—to produce the likeness of a person.

With your drawing well established on your canvas (as just described), the likeness is gradually advanced by refining the larger masses of the head (using the same mixed paint as before), then adding the smaller masses. As to the head, the three large masses are the hair, the light area of the face and the shadow area of the face.

09. 1st Stage - You Are Ready for your painting in color, so turn to the green key palette pictured in color, page 42. Set your palette with these same hues, starting with white, yellow ochre, cadmium red light, and viridian. (Add the others as needed.) With these four basic colors all the flesh tones in this present portrait were painted. The white is mixed into the other colors a very little at a time.

10. 2nd Stage - Having Successfully set down in paint the large masses of our picture, we are ready to begin the second stage of painting. This will bring the whole thing, from top to bottom, one step forward. (See Plate 6.)

First come the eyes. Mix a dark tone of viridian, yellow ochre and cadmium red deep. With this, draw the edge of the upper lid of each eye, using a No. 2 round bristle brush. Observe carefully the eye's distance from the brow; also the distance from the center of the nose to the inside end of the eye. Next, and still using the same tone, paint the iris.

11. 3rd Stage - In This Stage, pictured opposite, various refinements take place, including the addition of a middle tone. For this, add a little cadmium red light and yellow ochre to the first flesh tone you mixed.

The forehead will be divided into three areas. Since the light flesh tone and the shadow flesh tone are already on, the next step is to place a warm or middle flesh tone from the shadow across the front of the forehead, blending out to the light. This will give form—a third-dimensional quality—to the head.

12. 4th Stage - Since the first light flesh tone was mixed (and painted) a little lower and warmer in key than the highest color on the face, we can now bring up (lighten) the lights. (See Plate 8, opposite.) Take the color you mixed for the first flesh tone, and, adding a little white to it, paint in all the lights existing on the light side of the face.

Start with the highest light; almost without exception this is the round spot of the forehead, for it is here that the light usually hits the sitter directly. 8The lights should diminish in brightness as they go down the face, for, as the surfaces turn away from the light source, the rays strike at more and more of an oblique angle.

13. 5th Stage - Our Next Move is to add some cool tones. Refer again to the color plates on the brunette for this—pages 42 and 43. Such cool tones are made by mixing viridian in a small amount to yellow ochre; add also a little cadmium red light, being careful the final result still remains on the green side.

14. Background - Few Directions can be given for painting the background, but here are some hints. So far as color is concerned, be sure that everything which you set down complements the colors of the head. For instance an all-warm background will dim the warmth in the face and too cool a background may make the flesh appear hot.

Don't illustrate the sitter's hobby or profession except on the rare occasion that he or she is known only for— or perhaps is famous for—that particular thing.

15. Form & Features - Before Turning to the special problems involved in the painting of the man and child, as dealt with in the two step-by-step demonstrations which follow, we shall interject a few suggestions as further aids to the representation of all persons, regardless of age, sex or coloring.

16. Painting Man - We Recall That for the man we can use a very limited palette, the three-color key presented on page 18. (See also the reproduction of this key in full color, page 62, and a typical portrait of a man as painted with it, page 63.)

It is not necessary to repeat the detailed development of the painting, as already presented in connection with painting the woman, since the same general procedure would be followed. Also, part of this procedure will again be given when we come to our demonstration on painting the child. But study our accompanying step-by-step illustrations, together with their captions.

17. Painting 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.

18. Child 1st Stage - With Our Youthful model posed and the palette "set" with the blue key paints (page 19), the first move, as always, is to locate the proportions on the canvas pleasingly. These proportions are hurriedly drawn with the round bristle brush (No. 6 or No. 8), using a mixture of cerulean blue and cadmium red light. Either the blue or the red may predominate. (These will mix with succeeding tones without spoiling even the lightest.) Before this drawing is started, wipe on your paint rag the brush used in mixing your drawing tint, so that very little color is left in it. Softness should prevail from the very first line set down. (Plate 22.)

19. Child 2nd Stage - Proceeding In an orderly way with the construction of the head, begin at the part of the hair and, with your brush and the same paint mixture as before (cerulean blue-cadmium red light), strike the hairline over the forehead, down across the temples and over the ears, down around the cheek and jaws. Study these lines carefully as they give the over-all shape of the face. Next, starting again at the top of the head, draw any remaining outside lines of the hair.

20. Child 3rd Stage - Dipping The Same brush into your mixture of cerulean blue and cadmium red light, wipe the brush almost dry and begin laying in the shadows: hair, face, neck and dress. Partly close your eyes to define the shadows on your sitter. (Remember that the entire drawing, in keeping with the subject, is to be of very soft tone.) See illustration opposite.

21. Child 1st Painting - As With Our first demonstration on painting the woman, the procedure will be to paint each of the five leading masses in turn. (See Plate 25, opposite, and Color Plate 28, page 83.) We are not treating the masses in the same order as before, however. This order may vary with size of mass, color scheme, etc.

22. Child 2nd Painting - In Actual Practice, painting is seldom carried out in a definite number of separate clean-cut stages. One procedure merges with another. However, for convenience in a demonstration, or for such a book as this, the breakdown into separate stages seems advisable. (See Plate 26. Refer also to the earlier demonstrations on painting the woman and the man.)

23. Remarks - You Must Read the foregoing chapters again and again, carrying out appropriate painting exercises as you do so. You realize by now that this is not the sort of book you can rush through, digesting and assimilating it in a single reading. Every point calls for your undivided attention until you have made it your own.

Part 02 - Portraits By Author - On the following pages are shown examples of my own portraits based on the foregoing palettes and procedures. Each was done in from three to six hours of painting time. All are simple in conception and handling—the type of thing well within the capacity of the student who has conscientiously carried out an ample number of exercises of the kind suggested in this book.

Part 03 - Color Mixing - We are indebted to Winsor & Newton, Artists' Color Manufacturers, for the privilege of reprinting the following information. Obviously these notes would not necessarily apply to other makes of colors.

The colors in this class constitute Winsor & Newton's "SELECTED LIST"; the labels on the tubes containing them being branded with the letters "S.L." in red, to indicate this fact.

Part 04 - Q + A - At my demonstrations, questions are often -put to me from, the audience. Although the preceding text answers many of these, the following pages cover additional points which may interest some of my readers. For a wealth of similar material, see technical books on the order of those listed on page 13.

THE END