Painting Portrait Tips / Lots of information about how to paint a portrait
If you don´t have the opportunity to study from live nude models, the internet provides a great solution. Search for “nude models for artists”. It’s obviously not the same as far as spatial perception, but it is excellent to study proportions, masses, light and shade etc. of the human figure. It has never been so easy. I wonder what, for example Peter Paul Rubens would have said if he could have seen us studying this way! See also this post that I wrote about portraits models.
By means of this image I want to explain something that I do often.
In this portrait the light source comes from the top left. Consequently the shadow on the face is on the right side, on the chin. Sometimes it works well to have a high contrast in the values between the cast shadow and the background. That means I make this part of the background a lot lighter than the rest of the area.
When teaching I explain it this way: It’s possible to give a portrait some fresh air.
I have never been very stocky and my weight has never made me any concern. But now I see the studies that I made in front of the mirror when I was twenty years old, I do see a very skinny body. However, I could see enough muscles to name them.
I will not reveal my actual weight…
Occasionally I have a request to include a pet in a portrait. That’s usually a dog. Often the client asks, “Is it hard to make a portrait with a dog?” In itself it is not difficult. The problem is usually in the photo session. You can´t say to a dog “Sit there and look at the camera.” Some dogs are easy but not all. I have a dog myself and I know from experience how they can react. So when I’m going to do a photo shoot for a portrait in which a dog is to be included, I am prepared. I do this: I ignore the creature altogether from the moment I enter the sitters home. If not, he won´t stop trying to convince me that he is the cutest dog in the world. Which does not benefit the session pose.
Funnily enough, with children I often have a similar approach. In the beginning I don´t pay too much attention. Later I try, unobtrusively, to win their trust. At that moment I play the role of an actor, more than a portrait painter.
Soon my new blog will be launched, with a new design, and adapted to the requirements of Google for mobile phones etc. It’s a big project and I am working on it with my friend Bas in France. Apart from this project I also have a list of commissions to be painted and delivered by mid-November. So you see, I’m really busy. Barely time to write you. But what I want to tell you is that we have started again with our weekly portrait painting from life sessions. For two hours each week I work from a live model with a number of fellow artists here in the village. It’s really fun to paint together.
Portrait Painting is my daily work, you know already. I spend much of my life in my studio, behind the easel. It is therefore very important that my workplace be ideal. Not only in terms of lighting, but the spatial layout should be well thought out and the materials must be of good quality. That sounds obvious. Yet I sometimes see workplaces that are far from good. I do not understand that. Even when painting is just your hobby, plan everything that this entails in such a way that it is optimally organised.
Someone once said: “A good portrait starts with what you had for dinner last night”.Think it over