While I was teaching portrait painting (from photography) this week I thought of making a list of the most common errors, in order of importance:
1. Bad photography of the model/bad copies.
2. Poor quality of the canvas, hardly prepared with primer.
3. Wrong brushes. (worn-out or to small)
4. Inaccurate underpainting/drawing.
5. Scanty use of paint.
6. Flesh-tones too light.
7. Fear for the shadow-tones.
8. Inability to see large planes.
9. To much hard edges and transitions. (the eyes, mouth and hairline)
10. Mess on the palette.
The first four can be avoided by better preparation. The rest can be trained relatively easy. Once mastered, the real learning can begin.
