Practising portraits

A lot of art is just practise. I’ve been practising portraits with close family and friends usually after a meal when we’re just chatting. I like being able to listen in but often the conversation turns to a topic where I’m listening but nothing to contribute. I like that I can keep practising my art but still be listening and also through painting I’m forced to observe better. I am still paying attention and often will chime in with a comment that takes them by surprise. I find with portraits a lot of it is to do with the shadows and there are so many muscles that make up the face to create micro expressions it’s quite challenging to get a likeness and expression.

I have been reading a few books about how to paint portraits to learn the techniques

So far I’ve found

– there’s about 3 different main tones you need – light mid tone and dark tone.

– you need to mix and everyone’s tone is different, it also changes in the light so no you can’t really just have a stock standard skin colour.

– it’s best to water down the colours and do layers of colour where you paint then allow to dry.

– learn to draw go back to basics for proportion and value studies which will tell you where the shadows are.

– learn about the underlying body as it will help you understand where to put the shadows around the muscles where they are connected and how they’re formed.

– one artist who was an emergency doctor actually builds up colour similar to the layers of the skin and finds knows where the arteries are she can use more red to reflect where the blood is pumping. This tells you where to put a wash of pink or red.

Painting in layers doesn’t lend itself to my current goal of painting fast. I am finding that cellulose dries faster and, whilst the colour doesn’t lift off as well as 100% cotton, you are forced to do really thin light coloured washes to build up the colour and can still shape the contours with the gradient soft colour that are the shadows. I figure that as I build skill of painting faster and knowing what colours to put there will help me to identify what I can leave out or just get away with and this will also help me paint faster.