Portraits

What Will You Learn?

  • How to grid from a photo.
  • Cheat ways to paint a large portrait
  • Basic fundamentals of facial proportions
  • Two different paintings from start to finish working from a model using different backgrounds and approaches
  • Drawing with paint to establish basic shapes
  • Warm and cool light effects on skin tones
  • Establishing shapes and then refining them until a likeness appears
  • Using props like glasses to give structure
  • Making the most of complementary colors
  • Exciting brushwork

Course Content

Painting Peter
This is a portrait painting done from a model The face was lit from the side by warm light giving the face some contrast. It was done on a solid greyed down teal green background which was really effective when painting the warm lights in the skin tones as the background being green is complementary to the red and orange skin tones .

  • Peter Part 1
    20:47
  • Peter Part 2
    14:07
  • Understanding How to Grid
    14:21

Painting Maggie from life
In these 2x 20 minute videos I show you from start to finish how to paint a model from life. The portrait video of Peter, Maggie’s Dad was done in a 2 hour session and was more of a sketchy version. This painting scans a few sessions with Maggie and i have condensed it into shorter videos with lots of useful information. We briefly cover posing the model Maintaining the pose and angles of the face Creative and fluid underpainting Lifting out colour to draw and ascertain shapes Mixing colour for this portrait Painting pattern on fabric loosely to create an impression Adding yellow lights to warm colours instead of whites Exaggerating features like the hat for more romance Trying not to overpaint backgrounds