Richard Schmid exercise

I was watching a demo on head painting by Richard Schmid (on VHS no less.) I've heard about him by many artists over the years but never had a chance to read or watch any demos. A friend finally let me borrow a tape. I decided to follow along using the photoshop, occasionally pausing on the model to catch up with him. I tried to let go of what I know and approached the painting as he did. It might not show in the painting but it was an interesting excercise and I think I've learn quite a bit from it.



Even though he was painting in oils, I thought some of the techniques translated on the computer. I used a dry medium brush with "other dynamics'' on to have the opacity set to pen pressure.



I also discovered that if I open another file to mix my colors, it's almost just like having a pallete in oils. I would drop in colors that I was used to in traditional paintings and mix them in that file. For instance, I 'squeezed' out some Alizarin Crimson and scumbled White and a bit of Yellow Ochre over it to get the skin tone. I just sampled my colors from there.



I would double check my values by occasionally toggling between the B/W and color mode.



There's alot of good things in the video, I highly recommend it.