Step by Step Portrait Painting

This step by step portrait painting demonstration shows my process from live sittings with a model posing.
I started out with a grisaille (painting without colors first using only the grays or brown) underpainting approach which is a slow building approach yet safe and efficient.

I start this step by step portrait painting demonstration by dabbing on the first few strokes with a fairly large brush. With burnt umber paint from the Gamblin brand, I kept it pretty washy, although I would start building on thick as I progress on this step by step portrait painting demonstration. I thought of myself being a sculptor starting out the clay model by first throwing on large pieces of clay, so I looked for big overall shapes of the model’s head. I often paint right on the white canvas because the whites usually get covered anyway, especially when I’m doing an underpainting and usually the whites doesn’t bother me even if they show through. But if it bothers you it’s a good idea to tone your canvas first with a light-middle tone of probably earth colors such as burnt umber even though I don’t in this particular step by step portrait painting demonstration. I would also suggest to tone the canvas worh a rag and rub it in, instead of using a brush with paint thinner with medium as that can cause problems as the paint dries. Also it makes it hard to paint on top of a very wet layer of tones paint.

I began getting thicker with the paints to build up texture. Also it is easier to work with values and shading with thicker paint than with washes, as the paint is easier to control when it is at opaque consistency. I still thought of it as sculpting with clay, adding on smaller pieces of clay gradually to smaller forms of the face, adjusting as I go. It is very important to always think on three dimensional terms a even though you are working on the two dimensional surface, otherwise it could end up in a very flat looking piece of portrait.

In this pic of the step by step portrait painting demonstration, I began building up the paint even thicker and covered pretty much all the head with thick paint. I filled in the light side of the face with creamy consistency of paint mixed with burnt umber and titanium white. I continued on sculpting the forms with smaller details getting into the facial features the eye, nose and mouth, just as a sculptor would as he adds, and adjusts smaller and smaller forms. I don’t care too much about cleanliness, smoothness, or blending because I expect those refinements to happen as I progress into smaller and smaller forms, connecting and blending them together naturally.

 

I continue on refining the forms and adding hair mass. Also I need to mention that since I am working from life, you would often see the likeness change also as I progress worh the step by step portrait painting. This is because I don’t trace or rely on a drawing of a photograph but if a moving human model that can appear slightly different in their countenance etc as the sittings progress. Especially if it’s a project of multiple sittings where the model would come in on different days, they can look quite different some days. It would then be up to the artist to decide whether to change along with the model or keep things as you’ve had it the previous sitting. This could depend on where you are at in the step by step portrait painting process. During earlier stages such as the grisaille process, it is easier to make changes but after you’ve proceeded to add colors, it would be more advisable to keep the understructure instead of changing it along with colorizing process because that can be very difficult and often doesn’t improve it. The subtle changes in the likeness can also be seen on the step by step portrait painting process when the artist doesn’t know the model very well and getting to know more of her characteristics as he progresses and observes the face/facial expressions as well as the personalities.

Only when I’m feel completely comfortable with the grisaille, I start moving on to the colorizing process. I try to add colors where it would give the most different to the portrait, such as the red color of the mouth or the greens of the eyes etc. I work with small filbert brushes to daub on the colors little by little to avoid losing the underpainting of grisaille that I’ve worked so hard on. I would still usually run into minor areas where it needs fixing along with colorizing. But since I’ve solved all the main problems during the grisaille process in this step by step painting demonstration, now I wouldn’t face any big difficulties but only small corrections that would not be too big if a deal. But generally as I’m colorizing I’m not only colorizing but also still continuing to do all the same things I’ve been doing thus far in thsi step by step portrait painting demonstration and keep refining the forms of the face.

About the set up for this step by step portrait painting demonstration: I used a good lighting off a standing lamp to give good shadow design on the model’s face as well as having my canvas lit nice and bright. I also set up my easel so that I can continuously move it back and forth from my viewpoint to look at it from a distance as well as close up as needed. This is very important to me that I don’t just look at my painting seated at about the same distance the whole time. Unlike playing cello or the musical instruments, or singing, in painting, you have the advance of looking at it at a distance the way the audience would see it from a distance from the wall at a gallery, while you are working on the painting. I also set things up in a way that I can occasionally look at my painting and the model side by side roughly at same level and size for easier comparison. This is not the widely used “sight size” method which can happen when the artist over-uses this way of observation from the start of painting with exactness and even measuring things over but otherwise it is only a mere trick which also the past masters used as such in a rough manner time to time during middle of painting process which they didn’t deem it important enough to give it any significance of a mention or a name such as “sight size”. I derived to working this way myself long before I heard about “sight size” as it started to become a popular practice with today’s art schools called ateliers. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions regarding this post of step by step portrait painting demonstration or have requests to see any other kinds of demonstrations.