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Progressive Development of "Ms. Janet Lowe Swan"
This page shows how "Ms. Janet Lowe
Swan" was developed.
What Liz Supplied Us
Liz is a long-time personal friend of Yasuro's, who lives in Utah. In
the middle of the year 2003, she decided to commission him to paint a
portrait of her late mother, Janet. Knowing how much she treasured and
missed her mom, Yasuro gladly accepted it.
Liz sent us one portrait photograph of her mom and dad Karl, shot by a
professional photographer. She specifically asked us to work
from it (left). In addition, in response to our request, she sent us a
bunch of other stuff, including another professional portrait photo,
more than ten snap shots of Janet's on various occasions, and even
the beautiful poem Liz' brother (Janet's son) David wrote for
Janet. David recited it at her funeral.
All this helped Yasuro greatly in understanding the person Janet
was; not only that, from the portrait painter's point of view, too,
Liz gave him a very good starting point. There are two reasons.
First, the portrait photo, simply because it was done by a
professional, eliminates most, if not all, of the problems that
typically arise with photos shot by amateurs.
Second, other photos showed Janet seen from different angles, and
that helped in giving clues to her skeletal structure. For example,
the photo in the far right above, shows her skeletal structure very
clearly. She must have been in her 20s then, but as far as the head is
concerned, our skeletal structure does not change very much once we
grow up. So this is still very helpful.
All these photos were mailed to us by postal mail in the form of
prints. After scanning some selected photos, we returned them to Liz,
again by postal mail.
By the way, the kid Janet has on her lap in the photo second from
the right above, is Liz herself.
Now The Rest Is Up To The Artist
Below, we are going to show how this portrait was developed through
numerous stages. There is a description of what was going on for each
stage, accompanied by one or two photos of the piece at that stage,
and a personal narrative by Yasuro (surrounded by double quotes).
The color of the paper looks different from photo to photo, but it
is actually the same. This difference occurred because of different
shooting conditions and also possibly because of the post-shooting
touch-ups.
Throughout the development process, Liz was constantly notified of
the latest developments of the portrait, and she could see them (in a
lot larger size than shown here) at a special Web address we prepared
for her.
For the paper, Yasuro picked a sheet of blue-grey paper from Strathmore
500 Series Charcoal Paper, 18"x24", Assorted Tints (561-3). Part
of the reason for using this paper was to keep the shipping fee
economical. Heavily textured sandpaper-like paper, for example, does
not roll up well.
Initial Sketching
After careful sketching with HB pencil, the lines are more defined
with NuPastel brown pastel stick.
"I was not sure about the overall color scheme for this portrait,
especially how I should treat the background. I wanted to make use of
the color of the paper as is as much as possible. I ended up picking
blue-grey paper, but that's simply because it is typically done with
portraits. I was still not sure.
"I prefer to lay in a fair amount of detail at this initial sketching
stage, just to make sure that I've got the features right. I was happy
because I got a fair amount of resemblance.... or so I thought."
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Start of Coloring
Color is laid in with both Rembrandt soft pastels and NuPastel
pastels. Background is painted partially.
"Again, not knowing for sure how to treat the background, I
tentatively laid green on to the background. Initially, I thought
about changing the color of Janet's jacket, but Liz wanted me to keep it
as it is, so I followed her instruction."
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Adding Details
More details are defined; especially the mouth is fairly done. More
pink is added to the skin tone.
"Seeing the latest photo of the piece on the Web, Liz told me to make
sure that I get her teeth right because her teeth were clean and
beautiful. It is natural that the teeth look kind of dirty till they
are fully painted because the background color sees through. So I
defined the mouth and the teeth.
"... but something was wrong. I did not quite see much resemblance
going on. Oh, darn."
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Having A Critical Look
(This is a scanned image of a hard-copy of one of the photos, with
Yasuro's manual drawing in red.) A hard critical look is given to
figure out where it went wrong.
"After spending quite a lot of time comparing the reference photo and
the piece, and also a hard-copy of the latest photo of the piece, I had
to admit that I did not quite get the lower part of the face
right. Especially, the placement of the mouth was all wrong!
"I was astonished .... and also ashamed. What was I thinking all this
while? But I had to face it and fix it. I had to raise the jaw line a
little, which meant that I had to raise the shoulder line as well."
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Cleaning the Mess You Created
The nose is shortened. The jaw line is slightly raised. The mouth is
completely erased once (left) and then redefined (right).
"This was the most scariest stage in this project. I hadn't had any
experiences in complete redoing --- so I was pretty relieved when the
renewed mouth came out right, without any dirtying of the teeth. And
thank God, the resemblance started to show!... even though the jaw
line around her cheeks is still not quite right."
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Refining
Eyes are finally defined (left).
Shape of the hair is corrected (right).
"I finally defined the eyes. We rely so much on the expression on eyes
to fathom people's feelings, that portrait painters have to be really
careful with the eyes.
"I used various blues to develop the eyes, and it went well. At this
point, I began to think maybe I should use blue-based color scheme
rather than green-based one. After all, she wears a blue shirt, right?
If you look at the darks of the skin, I had been using greens, but I
started using blues instead."
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Change of Color Scheme
Color scheme is changed from green based to blue based, and
consequently the background is re-painted with blue gray. Even more attention
is paid to the jaw line. The shoulder line is corrected.
"Okay, so I decided to go with the blues, and I was happy with the
overall change. At long last, I started to feel that all the pieces
started to come together."
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Finishing Touches
Highlights to the eyes are added. Pattern and texture to the jacket is
added. Background is filled. Earrings are added. Colors of various
regions are "integrated". All other fine tunings are done.
"Adding the most bright highlights and integrating colors are what you
do at this very last stage. Color integration means taking care of
bouncing colors that occurs naturally in reality. For example, I drew
yellow of the hair down to some regions of the face. We are not
normally aware of this, but color bounces off everywhere by
reflection, and that has to be expressed in the paintings as well.
"... Oh, whatever. I am just glad it is done!"
Completed in 20+ hours.
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