Hi Morgan, just want to say a huge thank you from the bottom of my heart. The course is so well put together and incredibly easy to digest. I'm so happy with my portrait painting progress after learning everything you have so brilliantly demonstrated. While I didn't use the reference for this assignment. I implemented ( to the best of my ability ) the lessons on observational drawing, values, edges, egg principle etc. on a reference of Bob Dylan, I'd like you to see how far I've progressed since staring the course. The first Image was drawn before fully understanding plumb lines, values, edges and so on. The second image is the result of a month's practice of drawing day in and out using the principles of observation and honing in the powers that ketchup and mustard hold!! Thanks again Morgan !

Hi Morgan 🙋‍♀️ I have a quick question about the medium you are using in the video lesson „separating lights and shadows: Dark values“. You mentioned that you use pure walnut oil but, I suppose, it is for cleaning the brush only, not as a medium to make the oil paint more fluid while you are laying in your darks, right? If so, what non or less toxic medium would you recommend for this stage? Can we use walnut alkyd? Thank you for your help!

Hi Morgan, This is my value scale assignment. In skin tone mixing lecture, you said that shadows won't be affected by the temperature of light. Going by that logic, I kept the values of my shadows unchanged and only darkened my light values for subdued lighting. Everyone seem to lighten their shadow values for subdued lighting. But if the lighting is dull, it should have even darker shadows. In case of bright light, the bounce light will also be brighter which should lighten the shadows. This is just my logic and I might be totally wrong. Your words will be final. Thanks.

Hi Morgan, This is my submission for Skin mixing chart assignment. I also have two questions. Q.1: How do you decide the intensity of skin tones ? When I try to mix realistic looking skin tones, the chroma gets too low and if I try to mix skin tones with a little more chroma, it starts looking cartoonish. Q.2: I'm not sure if it is discussed later in the course or not but in your example, you did a little hue shifting in case of halftone. I came across this term not too long ago but I have seen that it makes the transition of a color from light to dark more natural. Like in your example, the halftone leans towards Red and your average light leans towards Yellow. When I try doing this, my halftone either starts looking too Red (Not in the same hue family as average skin tone) or if I don't add Red, the transition from Average light to Halftone doesn't look natural (I think due to lack of hue shifting). I tried shifting hue but your's look way more natural and correct. p.s. Please tell me what I should add to my current mixtures to make them better. Please help, if I get this, I'll be able to color properly.

I missed this assignment while doing the first one and went back to do it. First stage of average light and dark shadow only and softened the edges with my finger. For the greyish skin tones I couldn't paint over the wet paint very effectively so I ended up smudging away the warm average light paint on the outer edges to bring back the grey of the gesso board. I was able added some skin highlights.

Here are the before and after of just the edges part of the exercise.

Hi Morgan, I am enjoying your class. Here are the assignments. Thanks

Half tones added, and more modelling. Process photos and final scan. Any feedback back is appreciated.

I learned a bunch of lessons with this painting. First off, never spray fixative late at night when you’re half asleep...big mistake. It dripped all over my canvas board, and I didn’t notice until halfway through the next day. Now that it’s dried, those splatters stick out like a sore thumb and really bug me. I uploaded two photos in different lighting (outside and indoor light), plus a third to show the fixative mess. None of them quite capture the real painting colors. Photographing art without glare is a skill of its own, and my lousy phone camera doesn’t help Beyond all those hurdles, I think the face I painted came out rounder than the reference, and my halftones lean warmer than I intended. The chin could have better edge control in some spots and the hair under the hat looks a little sloppy, I really struggled to get clean shapes in that area. I'm sure there are many other things that need work but these stick out to me the most. Overall I would say I had fun doing this painting but if I'm having fun I must not be doing something right.

Adding in the halftones