Milan Art Institute Mastery Program Review: Week 8 Part 2

Apr 8

The remaining exercises for week 8 are all meant to use a live model. However, I used some photos from Unsplash.

Alla Prima Live Portrait

Yellow ochre and burnt sienna are used as warm paints for areas coming towards the viewer. Viridian is used as the cool paint for receding areas. I frequently mixed viridian with a little bit of black for the dark areas of the painting.

The process is 80 minutes long, broken up into 20 minute increments in order to give the model a break to rest.

First 20 minutes:

Create a thin layer of paint over the canvas, using a mixture of burnt sienna and viridian, in order to remove the white of the canvas.
Then use a thin, small brush to draw in the proportions of the face.
Block in the dark values.

Second 20 minutes:

Using a clean brush, move some of the paint from the darker areas to the medium areas, gently blur the edges for a softer look.
Subtract the light values with a clean brush.

Third 20 minutes:

Then using white mixed with the yellow ochre and burnt sienna, put in the skin tone colors and highlights.

Fourth 20 minutes:

Finally, do any touchups and work on the background.

alla prima portrait of a woman — My attempt at this assignment

Alla Prima Full Figure

The full figure assignment is very similar to the portrait assignment. The color palette is increased to add both primary warm and cool colors: cadmium red medium, ultramarine blue, cadmium yellow light, Prussian blue, alizarin crimson.

The process is the same as the one outlined above. 80 minutes total, broken up into four sessions of 20 minutes.

My girl reminds me of some of the statues at the Vatican museum. The ones with the funny eyes. My favorite part of the painting is her front leg, which I spent 20 minutes on, and then quickly tried to catch up on the rest of the body. The time limits on these assignments make them quite challenging. I tried to do the best I could. These are for learning, rather than making a perfect painting.