Andre Hazes freehand airbush portrait

Andre Hazes is a Dutch balad singer who had a powerful, tremelous voice. Sadly, he passed away a few years ago. I am currently working on a freehand airbrush portrait of him, the sequence of which is shown on this page - newest update on top. The airbrush I used is an Iwata HP-BH and the paint is Inspire H2O. The surface is a 30 x 40 cm linen structure paper. I haven't got as much time as I would like to have to work on the portrait, so progress may be somewhat slow. Had I had the time, I could probably finish it in one or two days, working continuously.

Virtually framed in 3D

Jan 07 2016 - adding dark accents

Third framing option

Second framing option

Though not finished yet, thinking of framing options

Jan 5 2016 - texture detailing & balancing areas

Jan 24 2016 - day light photograph

Jan 4 2016 - artificial light photograph

Jan 3 2016 - glazing with diluted brown, orange and red hues

Jan 2 2016 - artificial lighting - first shades of orange application

Jan 01 2016 - daylight photo - cheek correction & hair detailing

Update Dec 31 2015 - started work on skin texture

Dec 30 2015 artificial lighting

Dec 30 2015

Dec 29 2015

Dec 28 2015

'Tribe gathering' - work in progress

An other digital work. Huion 610 Pro tablet + Corel PhotoPaint X6. Years later I continued editing in Affinity Photo. Newest update on top. Inspired by a fabulous painting of the great Howard Terpning. The original painting is bigger than images placed on this page, because I found out only after drawing the pixel image that I painted a mere crop of the painting. I also added rifles, teepees, horses and background to this pixel work. 

This is what the painting would look
like when printed and put in a frame

After a long time edited the painting.
Time allowed me to spot mistakes
that I didn't see while in the process
of painting it the first time

Lakota warrior 'Kills First' on Huion tablet

After creating trial cartoons and impressionistic portraits on the Huion 610 Pro Drawing Tablet I thought I'd try a realistic color portrait. Reference image was a small B&W photograph of Lakota warrior 'Kills First' (...) taken by Gertrude Kasebier. The image I am working on is large enough to make giclee prints. Below you see the sequence of this portrait; the newest phase on top. At this point I am making the drawing after which I will apply detailed textures. I am thinking of making a photo-realistic version and a more impressionistic version for print. I may touch up the prints with an analog airbrush afterwards. 

Kiowa warrior - digital painting

I picked up my Huion digital drawing tablet again. It has certain advantages over creating analog art, in particular airbrushing. If you project drawings to trace, you need to print the reference image, digital does not require this. Undoing or changing parts of the painting is easy in digital art. If your not sure if a change will work well, just save the image and experiment on the copy; if things go wrong, you can always revert to the saved image.

If hue, contrast etc. are not to your liking, you can change it any time. It is also possible to work in layers that can be turned on or off at will or given a filtered or unfiltered transparency. Working on minute detail is easy with digital tools; just zoom in to increase control. Correcting mistakes is as easy as pushing Control + Z on the keyboard and there is no 'blue shift' when covering colors with white lines or areas as is the case in analog airbrushing.

Below are some of the steps I recorded. The oldest phase is at the bottom and the newer ones about that. The drawing was based on a painting of the fabulous Howard Terpning who created an absolutely fabulous portfolio. Mr. Terpning never ceases to inspire me and his art is never matched by any photograph. He is in an elevated category of his own.