An Open Book — Commission Example

An Open Book Painting, Commission Example.

An Open Book painting, a portrait of a young girl.
Her gaze meets yours directly, unguarded and unhurried — nothing held back. This portrait considers what it means to be fully seen: soft waves of honey and umber frame a face rendered in warm, naturalistic tones, freckles and all. There is no performance in this expression, only presence. It is a portrait about transparency itself — the rare moment when someone lets you look, and looks back.

MEDIUM: Digital Painting | STYLE: Painterly Realism | SIZE: 8 x 10| ORIENTATION: Portrait | TOOLS: Procreate, 13″ iPad Pro, Apple Pencil Pro, Giclée Fine Art Archival paper and ink  | AVAILABILITY: Commission example | CONTACT SHADOWMYST ART FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

ARTIST’S PROCESS:

An Open Book was painted in Procreate on a 13″ iPad Pro with the Apple Pencil Pro. The portrait was built to hold the sitter’s direct gaze as the focal point, with the eyes developed first to anchor the emotional read before the surrounding features were resolved. Hair was painted in loose, layered strokes to keep movement and softness against the stillness of the expression, and freckles and skin texture were added last to preserve a sense of natural, lived-in realism.

The process began with a detailed sketch followed by color blocking, a solid base color for the face and neck. A multi-layer approach was utilized to build up the skin tones starting with the darker areas and building up to varying colors of the skin where it is affected by temperature, blood flow to the skin, sun effects,

CHALLENGE:

The wavy hairstyle of a young girl was the challenge in this piece. Multiple layers starting with the layout of the style. Using a modified Procreate brush with multiple fine lines in one stroke the part, waves and strands direction was painted. A new layer underneath the first another modified Procreate brush with a soft base color was painted to add the volume between the original strands layer. Returning to the modified Procreate brush used to create the original layer additional layers were added with subtle color tone selections matching the reflected colors of the desired hair color. These layers add depth and definition to each of the strand layers as they are built. The final layers were utilized to add specific areas of highlights and shadow adding the sense of movement to the hair.

SUBJECTS AND THEMES:

Portrait Painting — Digital Portrait Painting — Direct Gaze Portrait — Young Girl Portrait — Procreate Artist