Doesn't painting hair make it all stick together?
Does this bit on Rubens help?
Fluent handling of the brush is his technique for the wisps of hair, which are painted with the tip, or point of the brush handle. These techniques were only possible because of the component qualities of the oil medium used.
And this kind of funky "Practice of Oil Painting" might help.
Study the lighting of heads by Velazquez and Van Dyck. A reproduction of one of them pinned on your easel, above the canvas, might well serve you as a guide. Arrange your sitter in a similar lighting and position, for you could have no better mentor than a good example of either master.
Do not hesitate to hold your brush against your model's face to ascertain its length, and make your study slightly smaller than life.
and, more to the point,
In taking the hair further do not attempt to separate hairs; treat the whole simply as you would silk or satin, just shapes of shadows, middle colour and lights, matching them in their absolute relation to the flesh.
...Soften the hair into the forehead, the outline into the background, and so on, but very sparingly, or freshness and the character of the brush-work may go. The frank touches are of great value; they give vitality, and like ruts in a road are evidence of moving life. |
