Thursday, December 8, 2011

Self Portrait

16 x 12 oil on masonite panel
I always have to feel my way along with proportions.  I've heard about the rules of feature placement (Peggy Kroll Roberts', etc.) but those just confuse me.  What I need to do is hang myself upside down like a bat and then paint what I see, since I'm not working from a photo.  If you don't know about that trick, turning your reference photo upside down makes you see big value shapes and exactly where they are so you don't rely on what you *think* you know/see in front of you.