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Last week I taught a workshop called “Expressive Portraits from Photographs.”  The goal of the workshop is to learn how to interpret photographs rather than copy them.   We had a photography session with one of my favorite models, Rose Morgan.  It was a beautiful day with the landscape clad in ripe spring bloom.  We photographed Rose throughout the grand Grosse Pointe War Memorial then continued the photo shoot outdoors.   For my final demo of the workshop I chose a photo of Rose where all the color of the sunny spring day is reflecting back onto her.  She is standing against a stone column and the background of the photo seemed disconnected with the beauty of the day so I created a color nest to explain the setting and the feeling of the light.

A color nest is created by painting the colors of the surroundings and the light into the background and then building the portrait in relation to those colors. The nest is a series of shapes that do not represent anything, just light and color that showcase the subject.  For this demo I began with a linear drawing to capture the action of the head and the placement of the features.  Next I began to surround the drawing with the colors of the day - the blue of the sky, the yellow light, and the fresh greens of unfurling leaves.  This created a nest of light that would explain the reflecting colors on the planes of her face.  As the colors enclosed around the portrait I increased the value differences in areas to accentuate the light.

Color nests work best when used as a background for a singular subject like a portrait, a tree, or a line of wash swaying in the breeze.  In this painting, Thursday Wash, my subject was the afternoon light falling on a line of pinned cloths blowing gently in the wind. 

This was painted plein air in my back yard.  I chose to paint a color nest rather than the trees, fence, compost pile, and other stuff in the yard.  The line hangs under an old maple with a thick arching canopy that filters the sunlight into shifting patches of yellow.  I painted the background with a wash of permanent rose and Indian yellow to capture the color of the afternoon light and then added the greens on top working back and forth to create the nest of color for the cloths to shine against.

To build a color nest you have to rely on color notes, which can be written color notations or simple marks of color to set your palette to at a later date.  Sketch books are a great way to keep a file of palettes of light.  Visual memory, which I wrote about in a previous blog, is very helpful and the more you study and paint from life the better you will be able to express yourself when interpreting a subject.  Next time you are inspired by a subject but not with the background, paint a color nest and see what happens.

Notes from my sketchbook in Italy last year

Below is a video of progression shots of the demo of Rose.  Thank you Bunny Homan for sending these photos.