'Buster' 8" x 8" - oil paint on canvas, 2021. At the beginning of the year, I decided to refocus my efforts on my art practice. This began with a daily block of sketches in my sketchbook and an initial oil painting portrait study... the one you see here.
I've long been fascinated by the atmospheric beauty, the play of light and dark and clean formalism of the aesthetic of old portraits. For this study, I first pulled a range of reference images of faces I found intriguing. This ended up being a selection of old portraits and some images of monster faces from creature feature films.
After taking some time to sketch each of the reference images to see how each felt through my lens, I landed on this head-shot of Buster Keaton. So far, I have not been able to find details on the image and who took it. Mr. Keaton has a fascinating face.
For the study, I worked with a limited palette of ivory black and titanium white except for his eyes which I painted in color. The tint of color was introduced at the end with a series of glazes of yellow and purple to give it some depth.
I enjoyed the limited palette and will be using it again for future portraits.
