Step Six, Frederick Douglass

I've had a few other distractions so I hadn't worked on this in about two weeks, but was able to get back to it earlier today. I believe I'm pretty close to being done with this, but I'm still not happy with the hair. I believe it needs more texture, primarily in the area from the upper left highlight over towards the right side. I'm also feeling that his left cheek (to our right) may be too "sunken" - I'll need to examine the photo reference better. I'll be attending the Ohio Civil War Collectors Show in Mansfield, OH this weekend, so between displaying it there, and here online, I'll get a better chance to study it more objectively. My primary concern is over-working and over "refining" it -- my tendency towards too much detail and nitpicking -- so I want to make sure I stop before that happens.

Step 5, Frederick Douglass

This portrait is moving along pretty quickly, since I've been working on it almost exclusively, rather than shifting back and forth from one piece to another. Now I just want to be careful to give it the time it needs, and not rush it in my enthusiasm to finish it. Still working only with the Artstix, though I did use a bit of odorless Turpenoid to blend some of the colors in the hair. I really don't intend to use the finer point pencils on this portrait at all. The hair looks too solid to me, particularly from his right temple upward and extending over to his left cheekbone, so I'll need to address that. I do like the way he's filling the space and the larger-than-lifesize scale adds drama to the expression.

Step 4, Frederick Douglass

Starting to get into some detail now, and this is where I want to be VERY careful: I like the intensity of the expression and the looseness of technique, and I don't want to dilute the effect by over-detailing the portrait. So far I've only added detail using the Artstix: Tuscan Red, Terra Cotta, Dark Umber, Black, Indigo Blue, Dark Green, Peach and Ultramarine. Right now I'm thinking I may not get into using any regular colored pencil at all. I also have lifted out some areas with a battery-powered eraser -- the Gessobord takes this type of eraser very effectively.

Step 3, Frederick Douglass

I'm using two entirely different "wet" techniques with the colored pencil for this painting. The background is done using the Derwent Inktense pencils, applied in a wash and allowed to run. The figure is done using a Tuscan Red Prismacolor Artstix, which contains wax, so even though the watercolor wash was applied in the background and allowed to drip, the area done with the wax-based pencils resists the wash, so it doesn't stick to the face. I've reddened the background somewhat with this wash layer. Also, the tones on the face and hair have been blended a bit using odorless Turpenoid, which has served to fill them in and intensify their color.

Frederick Douglass, Step 2

I've started to add more tonal areas now. The figure has been laid in so far with a Tuscan Red Artstix. The background is Derwent Inktense pencils, "liquefied" and applied with a two-inch brush, then allowed to run. At 24" x 24", he's a fairly imposing figure in my studio!

Taking a break from Sarah

After many days of feeling that I was finished with my most recent piece, this morning I hit upon an addition I wanted to make -- and now it really does feel finished. So it's off to the photographer's, and once I get the professional digital image I'll post the actual, final version. (As a result, I renamed my last post "Stage Seven", rather than "Final".

For Sarah Emma Edmonds II, I will be working with the stage of her life where she creates and adopts her new, male identity. I have a visual image of a shady pine forest that I think will play a strong role as a setting for this piece, since Sarah Emma travelled by night and hid in the woods by day, until she had grown accustomed to her new identity. Beyond that, I have some research and brainstorming to do. So in the meantime, I've begun a large -- 24" x 24" -- close-up portrait of Frederick Douglass. I've already completed portraits of Harriet Beecher Stowe and John Brown, two key players in the anti-slavery movement; they may be viewed on my website at http://www.civilwarfineart.com/. But as passionate as they were for the abolitionist cause, their experiences would have been very different from those of a man who had been born into slavery and managed to escape its bonds to become a dynamic and eloquent abolitionist speaker.

There are many photographic images of Frederick Douglass, and I am nearly finished with a small piece depicting him in his later years. But for my large portrait I wanted to focus on a much earlier image, taken in the 1850's, at about the same time he would have met with John Brown in Chambersburg, PA, to discuss Brown's plan of an attack on the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry. This image shows a much more intense, almost fiery expression in Douglass' eyes, and it is the eyes that I believe will be key to the success of this portrait.

I am working on Gessobord again, and began by doing an underpainting of watercolor pencil sprayed with water and allowed to drip. The basic drawing has been laid over top using a Tuscan Red Prismacolor Artstix.