Elvis in Grisaille

 PAINTING ELVIS AS A VALUE STUDY

I used a color that can go from very light to very dark in value, so I used burnt sienna, burnt umber, and neutral tint for darkest areas.

I have another more detailed blog on painting values in portraits. See Oct 13 and 29, 2019 blogs on grisaille, a portrait of my grandaughter Iris.  

Miskit only small areas that you want to be white, like the white dot in the eyes. 

Use burnt sienna (or the color you've chosen) and wet the entire face--including the eyes--and apply a pale wash over the entire face and hair. 

Dry. Gradually build up darker areas, constantly refering to the black and white reference.

For eyebrows, Wet the area. Drop in color at the bottom, and don't paint all the way to the top, allowing it to fade softly. Pay attention to the way the hair is growing. Use a tiny brush to paint in tiny hairs. OR use a watercolor pencil (brown) sharpened and gently draw in some hairs.

Below, I have shown how this can be colorized. If you use a color underneath that is more staining, you can easily paint other color over it. This painting below was done exactly as above. When dry, I covered the face with a flesh tone. Then I added magenta on the right cheek. I repainted the line down the nose with coral, and added some dark blue to the hair, picked out white dot in the eyes. 

In class, someone asked if the right side should have a dark background to pull the back of the head into the distance. That was exactly right, so I painted it dark to show how much it pulls that part of the head into the background. 

Here is the black and white version of the reference, found on the internet, so I can't use this for show.

Color version of Elvis.