Sachi

Acrylic on Panel - 9 x 12 inches - NFS

This is a friend of mine from the neighborhood, though this picture was taken in the park a while ago. I thought it would be an easy loose one to do for the Daily Paintorks' Paint Your Friend Challenge.

Well, the initial blocking in was easy enough, but I wasn't getting the face right. It was a nice loose image of "a girl" but it wasn't looking like Sachi. I could have left it at that, but I really wanted to figure out why it wasn't working.

You see, if been going to figure drawing classes lately, and I'm learning so much about the figure that I really should know better.

In any case I kept at it. I took pictures in progress, brought them into Photoshop and compared them and kept reworking the face. The really weird part was, if I made an adjustment to the lips, it wound up looking more like her sister. If I changed the eye, it would look like her mother.

Finally, after much hair pulling (mine, obviously) I got as close as I'm gonna get, and it looks like her. I really didn't mind all the tricks I had to pull out to make this work, because I learned A LOT in the process.

Landscapes are so much easier than portraiture, but then you knew that.