Beauty.. in the Eye of the Beholder

For those of you that have been following along with my progress... Thank you. It is so lovely having company while I paint and I hope you enjoy looking at the finished painting.



I wanted to explore people's interpretation of what exactly beauty is. The media forces youngsters to view beauty as being mirror image of our fashion models which can cause huge issues for many and can all too easily lead to heartache but is this really beauty or is a more natural figure more beautiful to the eye? I was also fascinated by a parallel in the world of flowers



"Some flowers spoke with strong
and powerful voices, which proclaimed
in accents trumpet-tongued,"I am beautiful,
and I rule". Others murmured in tones
scarcely audible, but exquisitely soft and sweet,
"I am little, and I am beloved."

Armandine A.L. Dupin 1804-1876 French writer


When my daughter and I went to the florist and saw the calla lilies behind glass and gently and protectively swathed in cotton wool we knew this was the supermodel of the flower world

but in trying to become the calla supermodel is this young woman hiding her true natural beauty or is it still visible within?

Ona

Eye of the Beholder WIP9

Progress is slow but it feels like things are beginning to take shape. I have now finished painting two of the eight calla lilies. Although not huge, they each take a while to paint. Its amazing when you really look how many colours you see in a white flower.


A couple of you have asked me about the size of the painting. It is a full sheet so is about 22 by 30 inches in size.

Ona

Eye of the Beholder WIP8

Over the last couple of days I have been working on developing the rest of the background. I wanted to suggest clothes but also to enhance the folds of the cloth to create the long spiky leaves of the grasses that florists often put with the calla lilies in their displays. So in effect the background merges into the clothes and the folds of the clothes become the leaves. Now, at last I can begin work on the calla lilies themselves.

Ona

Face Painting

I haven't done much to the painting today other than make the adjustment the eye above. I am much happier with it now though ...but I have had a paintbrush in my hand for most of today and have been busy painting, not paper, but faces at the 8th annual picnic run by our local branch of the Canadian Hearing Society. Thank you Kim and Pat for inviting us.

Ona

Eye of the Beholder WIP7

It's been a real challenge painting the leaf eye... keeping the leaf structure whilst creating the eye within by using light and shade for the white of the eye, the main central vein for the eye lid and creating the iris and pupil from a suggestion of a dewdrop with the reflection of the wild flower in it. I still have to add the eye brow on this side. I am also going to extend the folded section of the leaf slightly to overlap the top of the eye a little more so that the droplet doesn't just appear to end. This should be an easy fix. Then I can begin work on the material.



Ona

Eye of the Beholder WIP6

Hi everyone,

Its great when all the hours of work finally start to come together. Over the last two days I have finished adding the skin tone glazes and, at the same time, developed the section of background behind her. I am quite pleased with the way she seemingly merges into this background on the top section but at the same time still looks real and tangible. I had originally planned not to add any visible strands of hair but have decided now that I will because I want these wispy strands to help me to convey the feeling that although this girl is beautiful it is hard to emulate that perfect ' supermodel' look all the time but does this make her any less beautiful? (sorry about the colour in the photo. I will try to get a closer colour match in the next post)


I am now going to focus my attention on the leaf eye.

Ona

Eye of the Beholder WIP5

Progress has been slow but I have now finished all the underpinning on the portrait.



I will now begin to build up the glazes for the skin tones and background. I haven't quite decided yet what final skin tones I want. I guess I'll just go with the flow and hope I know when I've reached the right point.

Ona

Eye of the Beholder WIP4

Especially for you Vicki since you have been waiting so patiently for some colour I thought I'd post a progress report. It has been a busy week so I haven't done as much as I would have liked but that's life. At the moment I am still at the underpinning stage on the portrait section laying down the colours which will appear through the skin tones. I have probably at least another couple of hours work laying down further layers of colour especially in the more shaded areas before I can begin to add the layers on top which will create the skin tones.


It has felt more than a little weird working backwards with this. I always begin with the background in a painting but for this one I didn't want to do this because I want to create an effect where the face appears to merge into the background so in this painting I am going to paint the background as I add the skin tones to the face. Why? ... As I was creating the outline and decided to draw the face of the girl in this way I was thinking... Is this girl in trying to emulate a supermodel in appearance really her real self or is she just complying with peer pressure to become something she is not? Does she really stand out as more beautiful or simply merge into the background of fashion and teenage expectations... Is this false beauty really 'real' beauty? Does it really allow her true natural beauty to shine through?

Lastly I thought I would let you know that I decided to paint this on hot press paper. I did consider cold press so that I could mask the flowers and cloth while I was working on the rest of the painting but hot press is so wonderful for portraits of younger people that I decided to paint without masking.

Ona

Eye of the Beholder WIP3

I have had fun experimenting more with the design of the leaf eye. I wanted to create a little more of a realistic calla leaf shape but at the same time retain the human eye shape. I also wanted to work on the positioning of the chicory flower inside the eye.



I thought I would also take this opportunity to explain how I create my outlines. In this one I drew out each section individually on a sheet of paper. Then I scanned or photographed each and uploaded them onto the computer. I then used a program called Photoshop to let me move each individual leaf or flower around and layer them on top of my drawing of the human models face to create my outline. I do this because it saves me having to continually draw out each part and means I can play around with several different ideas before I choose which, I feel, conveys the message that I want to say the best. I don't worry about getting a perfect printable outline. It's just a way of experimenting at the planning stage. Now I am happy I will use my photoshopped composite image as a reference to draw out my outline onto the watercolour paper. Before I do this though I need to experiment with colour and more importantly how I am going to paint it so I can decide whether to draw it onto hot press or cold press paper.

Ona

The eye of the Beholder WIP 2

Hi everyone,

It has taken a while to do the more detailed outline because I have had to wait for my calla lilies to open up. James and I have been taking photo's of them each day and then I have been incorporating drawings of them into my design. I have been working on developing the effect of the lilies stems becoming part of the cloth. I have also deliberately left out the top section of the models head because I want the face to appear to merge into the background. A couple of you have also been asking who the model is. She is sort of a combination of many models, I looked at photo's of many supermodels and then just closed the computer and sketched so she's a composite I suppose of what I remember. There are a couple of adjustments that I want to make when I draw this outline onto the watercolour paper mainly in the area of the leaf eye but I thought you would like to see my progress. Sorry about the line along the bottom section of the drawing. I just used cheap sketch paper and it wasn't big enough so I taped another section onto the bottom. I will experiment with the leaf eye over the weekend and then I should be ready to draw out the completed outline onto the watercolour paper next week. The flower that I have chosen to put in the eye is the chicory. It can be found here growing wild and is considered by many to be a weed but it has such delicate and, to me, such beautiful flowers.




Ona