Su Haitao Paint-Sketch

As mentioned previously, I am doing an interview for my friend Su Haitao from China. For part of the interview I did a simple step by step on sketching as well as this small and quick painting. The picture that I used as reference was fairly low resolution, which was plenty good enough to sketch from. Once I decided I wanted to paint it, I asked Su if he had a better version of the reference with higher resolution. He didn't, and even though he sent new but different pictures that were of higher resolution, I decided to just stick with my original reference. I liked the colors and the setting . . . so, because the image was lower in resolution and I only had a little time to spare for this, I decided to do something a bit more painterly and loose, and I also limited myself to finishing the painting in under two hours.

I used a round brush to block in large amounts of color, then one of my brushy looking brushes for the remainder of the painting. Rather than focusing on the small details of the face, I chose to approach the painting more like that of a plein air painting. Squinting my eyes and focusing on shape, color, and value.

It was quick, fun, and I rather enjoy the final result.




Here's a detail image to see how loose and brushy it is.

I hate to sound like a broken record, but again, I would like to remind everyone that my next class on CARICATURE starts April 16th at www.schoolism.com As always, any questions you may have can be emailed to me or the staff at Schoolism. Thank you.