Abstract painting of a woman’s face – making of “Longing”

My painting checklist had abstract painting of a woman’s face from a long time. One of my painting, “Inscrutable” has a female face but this time my desire was to paint a bigger canvas. “Longing” is a painting that finally fulfilled this desire.

I am always amazed by the different faces that we human beings have. We all have two eyes, one nose, a pair of lips and yet we all look so different. In fact, even twins are not exactly alike. For this reason, painting faces is always interesting. Capturing uniqueness of a particular/imaginary face is something to look forward to. Painting an abstract male face in the painting “Reflection” was also a great experience.

Planning to make an abstract painting of a woman’s face:

As it was my first approach to making a lady’s face on a big canvas, proper planning was required. I made a rough layout in water colors to serve as a guideline. This layout helped me immensely and gave me the required confidence to go forward with the oils on canvas.

If you will see the final painting on canvas, it will be quite different from this initial layout. The initial layout is not necessarily the final destination but more of a push to start and help in initial stages.

Diving into the canvas to make abstract painting of a woman’s face :

Next was the time to start painting the canvas. The face was painted in various hues of pink (unlike the skin tones in rough layout) and the background was made in purple. Many people ask me that why I chose pink for the face rather than the normal skin shades. Sometimes, it’s just liberating and interesting to take the off route and choose a color out of the box. It’s an abstract face anyway and pink just felt right for the face.

As you can see in the final painting, the light and dark shades of pink are placed very tactfully in each block contributing the face. Taking clue from a realistic face, light shades are kept at features where light is highlighted in general. Similarly, darker shades are kept at portions where you find comparatively darker shades in a real face. Also note that imagining the direction of a source of light is also helpful.

Although the eyes are kept in geometric abstract style, the eyeballs were painted realistically because I like them that way.

The hairs are in shades of purple so that they merge well with the background. If you observe closely, you can find a purple stud is added in her ear just to make her more feminine.

Finishing touches and giving a title:

It’s important to emphasize that the final touches matter a lot. The last brush strokes could take a painting to another level. So, adding those finishing touches and standing back and observing where the painting is going is quite important.

When the painting got finished, it was time to entitle the painting. When I looked at the face, the eyes gave the feeling as if the woman was dreaming and waiting for her dreams and desires to get fulfilled. Hence, the painting was titled as “Longing”.

What happened next?

This painting was displayed in my art exhibition “Colors of Life” in Delhi. It received lots of compliments and was well received by the audience. In fact, it gets appreciation and viewers look at it with wonder till date.

P.S. This painting can be bought from this website. Check the gallery for more details.