Worked more on this face

I’ve managed to put a few more hours into this today. Still a long way to go to make it as refined quality as I can.  I don’t think I’ll paint in the pores of skin but to the point where I’ll paint in some subtle wrinkle lines in the forehead etc. 

I’ve never gotten this tight with a painting before but I wanted to do something that people in general can enjoy looking at. Usually people in general who aren’t painters don’t think I’m any good. Including gallery directors. I’d take in my portfolio and they’d tell me that I need more time then show me pretty amateurish photo-realism works they carry saying that their artists are very experienced. My non-artist friends always shows me photo-realism that they are very impressed with and asks me if I can paint “photo-real” as well. I’ve taken friends to Sargent show and they didn’t think he was any good. For representational (realistic ) paintings, people generally don’t appreciate painterly quality unless they are painters. 

Although I don’t paint from photos, my goal with this piece is to make it very tight and realistic. It’s important to me that the art resonates with everyone, not just with artists. 

I’m using a very rendery approach using a very small brush. It’s very time consuming but there’s something very tranquil about the process. I think I’m starting to understand how photo-realists enjoy what they do.