I was asked to produce a portrait from quite tricky photo reference. Sometimes it’s not possible to work from poor quality photos but in this case I felt I could see plenty of the facial features to produce a good likeness.
I don’t have many progress pictures I’m afraid as I did the first stages of the portrait at my demonstration evening in Flowerfield Arts Centre for Coleraine Arts Society.
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| The finished portrait 10″x12″ pastel on velour |
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| This is as far as I got in the two hour demo. I’ve managed to get the main shades down and I demonstrated how I build up the skin tones from dark to light. Check out some of my other people portraits for better step by step images of the skin tones. Try my portrait of two sisters HERE |
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| Tweaking the overall shape of the face and starting to add highlights. You can see from the photo reference I’m adding her hairline from another photo in which she’s wearing it down. But I thought I would leave a hint of one earring hiding in there. |
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| I kept the blue behind her as I thought her warm skin tones and the neck of her top all contrasted nicely. I’ve gone back and added some more texture and tonal shading to the background. |
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| Adding the brightest highlights on the skin to finish. |
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| Beautiful simple framing by Art & Home Holywood. Just love the little rim of blue mount showing which matches the background. |