Darius Is a result of my morning routine.
It's been a while that I've painted a face straight on because I subconsciously deemed it too easy or boring. Darius has changed my mind on that idea. I find his face extremely interesting even with his more accurate anatomy (which I tend to find more boring) The contrast between the flat black clothing and hair, the bright textured face pops beautifully.
There are a few interesting techniques I used to balance the visual weight on this painting. If you look at the original image (top of the page) you may notice the hair is slightly leaning to the right of the canvas. That tiny amount of lean pulls the visual weight hard to the right. to balance that dense black mass, I added this small light yellow stroke above the ear. Despite its small size the high contrast pulled the weight back to center.
It may be unorthodox, but when looking at the full image It plays a role in the entirety of the painting, and isn't very noticeable at all. It's all just part of my study, learning new things every time I sit down infant of an easel.
The main thing I wanted to experiment with is the background. If you take a walk through my gallery of paintings you will notice o don't typically like smooth solid color backgrounds. I am obsessed with texture to a fault. I started this painting with blending blue green and white and making a smooth glowing color. I then waited for it to dry (which was also new for me). My next layer was the solid black, focusing on neat clean strokes. The shirt lead around the ear to build the hair, leaving a whole where the head was to go.
This cleanliness from the background and the clothing/hair gave a perfect compliment to my preferred style which was executed on the face. The contrast of texture navigated the eye exactly to the face.
The black&White test gauges how the contrast defines the shapes and focal points.
Darius
20"x24"
acrylic
Possibly my new favorite painting of 2023.