Self-Portrait 12/16/11

©2011 Bethany Vanderputten

There For You

There For You ©2011 Bethany Vanderputten

This painting is part of my new album "Always" devoted to Bon Jovi. View all five paintings online right now at www.bethanyillustrates.com. 

Thanks to JC Page Photography for collaboration on this image.

August Bethany

Self Portrait at 30 (process)

I'm close to the completion of my MFA in just a few weeks but have found that it's been good to keep my hands busy with side paintings. Watch this journal as I will reveal my thesis paintings here soon (and perhaps some of my process too)!

Below are a couple shots of a 'side painting': my self-portrait in progress. The first is my initial lay-in of colors and some structure. The second I worked more on the face and values. Next I'll solidify what I'm doing with the background before I go back into the face some more. Portraits are always difficult but a self-portrait especially so as I've found I don't keep as still as I like! This makes it hard to capture the bone structure.



Something I've been exploring more lately is working with desaturated colors and limiting saturation to the focal point. This is difficult with acrylics but also because I love color and now feel like I'm painting with 'mud' everywhere. I hope this will end up making my paintings more sophisticated.

Oh look! Here are my brushes. I can never get them quite as clean as new.

Self-Portrait at 30 (Underdrawing)

This is the underdrawing for a self-portrait I'm working on... a celebration of my 30th and the impending end of my MFA.

Quick Portrait Studies

Sometimes it's fun just to paint quickly and see what comes out. The top is a self-portrait done in about twenty minutes and below that is a painting from a model done in about five minutes.

Oh, and here's a two minute sketch of my pastor:

Self Portrait with Flower

One of the most meddlesome things about using acrylic is that it dries darker than when you first paint it, as the binder used in the paint shifts from white to transparent. This is an exercise I assigned myself to help see the subtle color shifts.

And this is part of my palette:



I just got some new Winsor & Newton Artists' Acrylics which claim to be brilliantly colored and not to shift darker as they dry, as they use a transparent binder. I'm looking forward to trying them out with my next few paintings... we'll see what happens!

Self Portrait with Bridge

A Self-Portait with the Golden Gate Bridge... to practice painting in Photoshop.

What I've been up to...

I haven't been doing very much sketching this summer but I've been doing a portrait painting class with Zhaoming Wu. This is my self-portrait in progress... black and white in oil. :)

Self Portrait 26II08

Well, I usually don't post more finished work here, but I wanted to share another self-portrait. I painted this in Adobe Photoshop - in black and white, and then 'glazed' some color over it using layers. I like the back lighting and then the secondary light source revealing form on the left.

Self Portrait 16XI07

I've done so many portraits in charcoal lately, I thought I'd try one in acrylic... it's nice to pick up a paintbrush once in awhile.

Chapter XXVIII

Well, it's been awhile since my last post... I've up and moved to San Francisco to pursue an Illustration dream!

Welcome to chapter XXVIII...