Fine Art Contemporary Portrait Painting

This fine art contemporary portrait painting of a girl is done from a live model with multiple sittings.

Since the model’s availability was reliable, I used the slow approach starting out with the grisaille method ( underpainting without colors using browns or blacks only ). I used good lighting shining on the model’s head as well as on my canvas.

I began by using burnt umber oil paint, gamblin brand and blocked in the large general shapes with a large filbert brush. I usually use pretty cheap brushes that I get off Amazon and try not to get caught up on the quality of the tools. I then started working with thicker paints mixing some white into it - titanium white Gamblin brand. I indicated the hair mass also moving along with this fine art contemporary portrait painting.

I think sculpturally and work around the forms. Adding brush strokes as if they are daubs of clay, I started getting into the forms more with adjustments and refinements.

I avoid getting stuck in working on a small specific area but work all around the head building it up at the same time at the same level like a sculptor would with his clay modeling.

I continue defining the forms and smaller features. I also started asking some black paint, ivory black to accent the darkest areas such as in the eyes. I continue defining until I feel solid enough with the grisaille underpainting to feel comfortable to move into the colorization process.



The goal during underpainting process of this fine art contemporary portrait painting is to pretty much figure out everything except the colors. Since colors are very hard to deal with in itself, it would make it three times more difficult if you have to make corrections or fix problems along with the colors. Even so, I usually do run u to problems while colorizing despite all the effort I put in for the grisaille process, but that is the part of the challenge and are minor errors usually. It’s definitely worth the time and effort to do a pretty tight and finished looking grisaille before adding in the colors.

When I start to add colors, I usually pick the area where it is most colorful, such as the blue eyes or the reds of the lips and move on from there bit by bit. Unlike the start of the grisaille process, I do not mask in large areas but use a pretty small brush to colorize little by little with opaque thick layers. I occasionally use a bit of refine linseed oil, also Gamblin brand of the paint is too thick or hard to work with and mix up, but I do my best to not use any medium but just the oil paint itself. Unlike water soluble oil paints, mediums can create a lot of problems especially during drying process where it would create streaks or unwanted glares and textures that weren’t there before. I actually prefer water soluble oil paints because it doesn’t create such problems using only water, but water miscible oils has questionable solvents in them added on to enable the oils to be mixed with water, which could make it less archival. But there’s no way to know for sure as water miscible oil paints have nothing been around long enough and is a pretty new media. But after having switched to regular oil paints, I have been trying to stick with the Gamblin brand because it is a reputable brand of oil paints.

As I am colorizing on and progressing on this fine art contemporary portrait painting, I also make necessary adjustments or fix errors as aforementioned. I keep refining and making things tighter and smoother until I feel that it’s finished. When working with live models other than yourself in the mirror, there is definitely a bit of urgency because you don’t want to keep the model around for too long posing for you or they may not be available for it for so long. While it is never a good idea to rush when making a fine art contemporary portrait painting, but it’s something to take into consideration when painting the fine art contemporary portrait painting of the subject in person.

Although I’m using a classical traditional approach, I’m a contemporary painter making this fine art contemporary portrait painting. It could sound like an abstract painting to refer it as “contemporary” bit I think “modern” is used to refer to abstract art. Such as MOMA, Museum of Modern Art. I don’t do modern or abstract portraits but fine art contemporary portrait painting yes. I used to try and juxtapose my classical painting style with abstract elements such as making the face realistic with abstract background or clothing patterns, but that wasn’t really my cup of tea either. I’m not a fan of such art unless it is by Gustav Klimt. Otherwise I don’t really like things where it’s so deliberately beautified just for the sake of that, by using cool brush work, or gold leafs, abstract designs etc. I like all things that are derived naturally without intentions including design and simplification. There’s a different with deliberately designing and simplifying/stylizing things and those happening naturally with the artists instincts/design sense.

This particular model had overall generic features but one thing that gave her face a unique character was her mouth. Not always but occasionally at certain times her mouth became kind of pouty which I found appealing and captured it by elevating it upwards more than usual. I feel that it gave a nice touch to this fine art contemporary portrait painting. It could seem like an error to untrained eye, but you must always look at where the base of feature sits on the plane of face in three dimensional terms, not by looking at it two dimensional ways such as the line that parts the mouth-which can move up and down depending on the countenance.

This piece is actually a start of a large compositional painting. Since I work only from life, I don’t do preliminary compositional studies but start right off with direct painting. I don’t have much clue in the beginning of the compositional design but pretty much paint in the head at random spot of the canvas, usually towards the middle, then figure things out by ear from there. After the head is done with the live model, you can continue with the composition even if the model no longer comes in. You could have another model to continue with painting in the body or you can make it a composition where it just involves the head without the body. For this one I ended up making it look like a statue bust. I’m still working on it which I will post of it when I finish. But it’s of Coma Berenices, an Egyptian Queen who sacrificed her long hair to Aphrodite for her husband’s safe return. I’m giving it a bit of modern twist to the ancient mythological to make it a fine art contemporary portrait painting composition.