A portrait of love

My reference photo

Francesco Fontana

has a BA in Fine Art and is a co-founder of Fare Pittura Atelier in Milan, where he teaches life drawing, oil and watercolour. He has also tutored workshops across Italy and France, as well as Bali and the US. He has exhibited widely and won many awards for his work, most recently the Bronze Medal of Honor at the American Watercolor Society’s 2021 International Exhibition www.francescofontana.com http://francescofontana.blogspot.co.uk

Follow how Francesco Fontana painted the portrait of a grandmother and her granddaughter as part of a series of watercolour paintings on the theme of relationships

Based on my studies, I selected Daniel Smith watercolours in quinacridone sienna, permanent red deep, imperial purple, French ultramarine blue and green gold. Sienna is basically meant for the overall skin tone. Other than colouring the skirt, blue is a complementary modifi er and darkener for sienna. Red helps with the rosy shade of cheeks and lips – echoed on the decorations of Isabella’s shirt and skirt. Green gold was chosen for Nonna Lina’s grey hair. It also helped with the gold tones in her skin and echoed the leaves in the background. Green was also instrumental in muting the purple for the intense grey I needed for her dress

n 2018 I started the series ‘Faces

Iand Stories’, which is a fi gurative watercolour project that works around the concept of peoples’ relationships. Most of the paintings, in fact, include more than one fi gure. My fi rst models were family and friends; and after seeing the fi rst works, the Gregori-Passeri family were excited to have a portrait dedicated to grandma Lina, painted in watercolour.

I had painted several large family portraits for them through the years, but those were made in oil. This time they wanted to take the chance with watercolour.

By working with watercolour I risked losing the comparative impact of oil paint – this for me was a high concern. Plus, the margin for correction and change is much more limited. Indeed when I submitted the work at the drawing stage, my patrons were about to change their minds. But before giving up and turning to oil, I took my time and decided to keep going, silently, during the lockdown. When the collectors saw the fi nal result, they were totally blown away and completely in love with it, saying that ‘love fl ows through the painting’!

I was proud to put my signature on the painting and, having been given carte blanche to choose the frame, I selected a luxury silver handmade frame.

p STAGE SIX

I drew the pot and leaves before darkening the background. I refrained from making the plant too dynamic because I didn’t want it to steal attention from the main focus

u STAGE SEVEN

A last look at my value study suggested I darken the background in order to make Isabella’s torso and head pop out more. I also intensified Nonna’s dress tone to better connect it to Isabella’s skirt, which brought their two bodies closer together, as in a classic sculpture

t p STAGE FIVE

The colours in the dress, the hair and the hands were blocked in. I tested to make sure the skin tones and other colours matched, then I drew the flowers on Isabella’s shirt and added their soft rosy accents. The faces were developed with three to four layers of warm hues. I kept in mind that the average human skin colour (red-toned), is way darker than we tend to think. I also reminded myself the main character was expected to be Nonna Lina, so I didn’t want the pure beauty of young Isabella to shine over her