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06 February, 2005

Dawn Schmidt
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4 hours of Kissy Kissy...

I have had a number of emails asking how I painted Kissy Kissy in 4 and a half hours...frankly, I don't know, because I NEVER paint fast or loose, even when I painted billboards at a pretty good pace, it was never this fast.

After thinking about it, I guess I prepared myself well before I ever put brush to canvas. I found good reference pictures, picked my color range, and had my final image strongly in my head before I started.

I wanted to do a painting of me as a child with my dog, nose to nose. I didn't have Misha when I was little, so I searched the internet for some children's profiles, figuring I could adjust a face to look more like me as a youngster (dang, that was a LONG time ago!).

11 Comments

Dawn Schmidt 06 Feb 2005

I usually whip together a "digi-sketch", as I cal them, to use as reference during painting, and to show clients. Here's the rough piece I put together for Kissy Kissy.

I had originally planned on doing a heart in the background that looked like a child drew it in crayon. But then figured it would be too garish and take away from a subtle moment I was trying to capture.

Dawn Schmidt 06 Feb 2005

I gathered all my tools the next morning, including Diet Coke, cheetos and chocolate chip cookies (um, just getting in touch with my inner child for the painting - yeah, that's it!). :)

Drew out my design (while talking on the phone with Sean!!), and then started to literally slap paint into the background with a small house painting brush. I wanted it to look almost impressionistic in the background.

Dawn Schmidt 06 Feb 2005

Time to dive in and start the subjects...take a deep breath and start laying down some basic colors, as I can go back and add detail afterwards.

I always keep my reference material very close to me - constantly checking shapes, shadows, highlights, color.

Dawn Schmidt 06 Feb 2005

Oh, man, I really don't do a lot of human portraits, so this was the scary part...if you don't get skin tones right, it can look like a corpse or a jaundice victim when you are done!

But, getting some warmer tones underneath really helped. There is yellow, and some blue underneath.

Dawn Schmidt 06 Feb 2005

I went back and forth from this point, adding in more details to both subjects. I kept an eye on the clock, and my goal was to be done by 4 PM, but ended up painting until 4:40.

Dawn Schmidt 06 Feb 2005

Details

Dawn Schmidt 06 Feb 2005

This "necklace" was made by my old roommate's sister, so it was important for me to have it in the painting.

Dawn Schmidt 06 Feb 2005

And the final. I am grateful to Hinsel for the opportunity to really push me out of my "safe zone". You can sure learn about your skill level when you are forced to go on "automatic"!