My Crabby Child and Another Way to Paint Portraits

Those of you that know Peanut have probably seen her looking grumpy at one time or another. On the flip side, you've probably also seen her literally jumping for joy.  Seriously, when she is really excited or happy about something, she jumps up and down.  [I wish I was compelled to do the same - just think of how many calories I'd burn jumping up and down throughout the day.  I'd be thinner, but I doubt I'd have many friends left as this isn't "normal" behavior for an adult.]

The photo of Peanut below was taken when she was about 3 years old, although we've seen this expression of her quite often.  She and The Oldest had these great, old-fashioned looking dresses that gathered on the sides.  We had a little photo shoot while visiting my parents.  After awhile Peanut had enough!

For this painting, I'm going back to a full sepia underpainting.  To do this, I start with a toned canvas. Usually I use burnt umber mixed with white, but this time I chose to use raw umber and white.  Raw umber has more green in it, while burnt umber has more of a red tone.  Sometimes I feel like I fight with the brassiness of a painting, so I'm hoping that going with a grayer, greener brown will help.

My big easel has clips that I can use to hold my photos when I paint, but since we moved I've been painting in my kitchen and using my portable easel.  I had been using masking tape to fasten my photo alongside my canvas, but it tends to droop after awhile.  Using binder clips to fasten the photo (taped on a folder) to the back of the canvas works much better.  No more drooping!

With this painting method, I use only brown (in this case raw umber) and white for my underpainting. Before I get too far down the line, I spend a little time laying out my subject - grumpy Peanut. This saves me time in the long run.  It's such a bummer to have a beautifully painted face and then realize you need to move it!

A couple of hours later the kids are coming home from school and my underpainting looks like this. I've still got some work to do -  I couldn't get my whites bright enough because my canvas got too wet. I also need to figure out what I want to do for the background, but I like how she looks so far!