Learning color values.

I have made a decision to practice painting faces,

I so much want to improve my skills on color values and smooth transitions. Not that I'm thinking of making real life paintings in the future, but real faces have real colors and transitions and they are the best tool for me as inspiration.

So, one of my newly bought sketch books now has been turned into my private facebook. Since this is all about painting and mastering the colors, some of the faces will be traced and some I'll draw myself. I'll probably use a photo for inspiration for each face, I've already downloaded alot of then from the internet. What I like the most is a face with caracter, lived life so to speak. I also found some really good portraits of children with clear and good expressions.

My first face is a traced one and shows a gentleman in his mid 50's I'll guess. I have no idea who he is, found on the internet, but he has this good expression in his face.

Now, I'm especially pleased with his eyes and ear. The most important thing for me to remember, while painting, is why I'm doing it. Color values and transitions, that's what it's all about. I'm so looking forward to this exercice, and in the future I'll have a book full of faces. Perhaps one day I can paint a face even without drawing it first, wouldn't that be something?

Have a really nice day, and thanks for popping in!