Extreme Lighting

I'm currently taking a class at the Watts Atelier taught by Jeff Watts in head painting with an emphasis on unusual lighting situations. There's a new model every week where the lighting is drastically different or theatrical. Each study had been a fantastic exercise in helping me break out of formulaic approaches to head painting. When there's a shadow running down the middle of the face, extreme backlighting or colored lights it compels me to take a fresh approach to not only mixing colors for the flesh tones, but how I build up the forms and how to balance halftones with shadows and highlights. Here's a couple 2.5 hour studies from this class.