Floating Head!

I’ve been cheating at ArtRage.

There’s a nifty ‘trace’ feature, which allows an image to be brought into the program, which can then be painted over, either by using the standard palette colours, or colours from the image itself – which means I just paint away and watch the colours magically appear on screen! It’s interesting to see how we see colours differently, as I never realised how dark my teeth and eye whites are… nor that I have a dark diagonal shadow across my forehead. It also shows how many shades are needed to get the face looking like a face. Unless I’m more blotchy* than most.

My nose also looks very pointed, which I’m blaming on the blending, rather than the nose. And my eyebrows need some work, which is the norm anyway.

I suppose with a little more time, a smaller brush size, and more intricate blending, I could make the painting look like the photograph… but then, I may as well have just posted the photo if I wanted that.

It is cheating, but tracing can only go so far, and the blending of the colours can dramatically affect the colours around it (probably reason for that dark diagonal forehead line!)

But as a starting point, it’s OK, and as a base, and using the palette colours the portrait can change into something else. I could be someone else! And to be completed within an hour, typing included, I’d say it’s a good start.

This isn’t a painting I’d show to anyone, even though it’s more of a blending.

Says he, posting it to the whole world.

(*And I’m seriously considering changing the name of this blog to Blotch and Blather!)