This year, I started to focus on people's portraits, and I thought to share my approach to painting portraits with anyone who may be interested. Hope it could be useful.
I basically follow this five-stage process below:
Stage 1. Establish a heart connection with my painting subjects. For this commission, I received one photo of the girls and some lovely descriptions about their personality. I will let the energy "ruminates" with me for a little while until I feel ready to create in the physical realm.
Stage 2. Pencil study. The intention is to understand the facial structure of the subjects and also continue to connect deeper with their energy and spirit.
Stage 3. Value study. This is my favorite stage! Using simple colors in earth tone, I study the light and shade patterns of the subjects without worrying too much about the likeness or details.
Stage 4. Color study. I mainly study the flesh tone, colors of the clothes and background. To achieve the rosy flesh tone for these girls, I used a mixture of Opera Pink from Daniel Smith and Azo Yellow from M. Graham. In shadow areas, for blue tones, I charged in Sky Blue from American Journey or Sleeping Beauty Turquoise from Daniel Smith; for purple tones, I used Janet's Violet from American Journey or Amethyst Genuine from Daniel Smith.
Stage 5. Prepare pencil sketch for the "official" painting using a light box (I only use the light box for commissioned pieces to have better physical likeness; for others I would just freehand). I start with flesh tone, then eyes, nose, mouth, hair, clothes and background. For the paper, I used Saunders Waterford cold press natural white 140 lbs.
Paint the eye areas
Complete the head and neck area
Almost there, clothing and background colors to follow
Complete painting
So here is my portrait painting process. I hope it helps! We all create somewhat differently, and I hope you find your own favorite way to paint portraits. They are not easy but can be truly rewarding.
P.S. I learned most of this approach from the great watercolor artist Janet Rogers. She has a number of videos on YouTube and also teaches in-person workshops around the U.S., which I highly recommend!
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