When working with portraits there are all kinds of challenges thrown at you and you learn over time to work with them.
This current commission is being completed from a black and white image that was requested to done in colour. Another image was provided that showed the colouring of the individual as a child. So I'm slowly working up the colour on this piece based on my knowledge of redheads and their pale skin and from researching online as well as real life people with the same colouring of around the same age. Luckily in Newfoundland there is a strong Irish influence in genetics so naturally red hair is fairly common, giving me more models to observe.
According to Wikipedia:
Red hair ranges from vivid strawberry shades to deep auburn and burgundy. It is caused by a variation in the Mc1r gene and believed to be recessive. Red hair has the highest amounts of pheomelanin and usually low levels of eumelanin, and is the least common hair color in the world.
Also hair usually darkens as we age from childhood, so the redness will develop into a darker shade of its original childhood colour.
This portrait is being completed with coloured pencil.
2 comments:
Interesting info about redheads. I worked for several years as a licensed hairdresser so I saw many redheads. As they age and start to turn grey the hair goes through a pink stage which I thought looked pretty cool. This was before pink hair was the fashion.
Beautiful, Jeanette!
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