Learn All About Portrait Painting & Drawing
Welcome to my Squidoo lens on portrait painting and drawing. This lens will feature tips and lessons on portrait painting and drawing as well as highlight some of the more famous portrait artists in history. If you should have any suggestions or comments about this lens, please feel free to leave it in the feedback box below. Thanks and enjoy!
You may also want to visit my other online resources for artists:
Creative Spotlite - Free Art & Crafts Lessons & Resources For Beginners - This is my first site created over 6 years ago. It is a growing collection of free arts and crafts demonstrations and lessons on a variety of different topics including painting, drawing, crafts and photography.
The Art Instruction Blog - Free Art Instruction and Resources for Beginners - This is my blog on art instruction. It has become quite popular and is filled with lots of great resources for artists including step by step demos, artist interviews, videos, projects and more!
What's Here on This Portrait Painting and Drawing Lens?
- Portrait Painting Tips For Beginners
- Portrait Painting Demonstration
- Books on Portait Painting & Drawing Technique
- Portrait Painting Demonstrations...
- Conversations on Twitter About Portrait Painting
- Portrait Painting Tutorial Using Genesis Heat Set Paints
- If you like this Lens, be a sport and leave some feedback.
- Pencil Drawing Tips
- Portrait Drawing and Painting Blog Posts from Google
Portrait Painting Tips For Beginners
Being able to capture the likeness of a human being on canvas, using paint,is certainly a sought after accomplishment for many new painters. It is also quite challenging. With practice, you will soon be painting portraits like the masters.
Painting a successful portrait is all about how you observe the subject. You want to study the subject as a whole. Study the bone structure and try to see shapes and planes. Do not try and paint every little detail exactly as you see it.
For beginners, it is probably best to start out with a lighting effect where light and shadow are in high contrast. This will make for a much easier painting.
Focus on one section at a time. Finish each section before moving on to the next.
Keep the darks of your portrait at a thin consistency while your lights should be painted on thickly.
Remember that skin comes in a variety of colors & textures, so there is no specific formula for mixing flesh tones in portrait painting. You will have to experiment and practice, until you find the right color mixtures for any particular subject. Never purchase any pre-mixed flesh colors. When mixing your colors be careful not to over mix, which can deaden a color.
Try and repeat the colors and values in your painting to create balance.
When painting hair, don't try and paint every individual strand of hair. Look at the hair as one object and then paint the lights and darks. Paint the hair in the direction of the shape of the head.
The muzzle area of the face (the space between the nose and mouth) is generally the same color as the flesh but cooler.
When painting backgrounds, don't make them too detailed or busy. If you do, you will draw focus away from your portrait.
Add bits of color where the shadow meets the light in your portraits.
Fleshier parts of the face are generally warm and bonier parts of the face, like the chin for instance, are generally cool in color.
The white in the eye is not white. To get an accurate color for the white in the eye you can take the subjects basic flesh color and then lighten it with a gray made from black and white.
I hope these portrait painting tips & techniques have helped. Portrait painting can be difficult, possibly even frustrating in the beginning. Never give up and keep practicing. You will get the hang of it.
Painting a successful portrait is all about how you observe the subject. You want to study the subject as a whole. Study the bone structure and try to see shapes and planes. Do not try and paint every little detail exactly as you see it.
For beginners, it is probably best to start out with a lighting effect where light and shadow are in high contrast. This will make for a much easier painting.
Focus on one section at a time. Finish each section before moving on to the next.
Keep the darks of your portrait at a thin consistency while your lights should be painted on thickly.
Remember that skin comes in a variety of colors & textures, so there is no specific formula for mixing flesh tones in portrait painting. You will have to experiment and practice, until you find the right color mixtures for any particular subject. Never purchase any pre-mixed flesh colors. When mixing your colors be careful not to over mix, which can deaden a color.
Try and repeat the colors and values in your painting to create balance.
When painting hair, don't try and paint every individual strand of hair. Look at the hair as one object and then paint the lights and darks. Paint the hair in the direction of the shape of the head.
The muzzle area of the face (the space between the nose and mouth) is generally the same color as the flesh but cooler.
When painting backgrounds, don't make them too detailed or busy. If you do, you will draw focus away from your portrait.
Add bits of color where the shadow meets the light in your portraits.
Fleshier parts of the face are generally warm and bonier parts of the face, like the chin for instance, are generally cool in color.
The white in the eye is not white. To get an accurate color for the white in the eye you can take the subjects basic flesh color and then lighten it with a gray made from black and white.
I hope these portrait painting tips & techniques have helped. Portrait painting can be difficult, possibly even frustrating in the beginning. Never give up and keep practicing. You will get the hang of it.
Portrait Painting Demonstration
By Karin Wells
There are a LOT of ways to paint a portrait. I use several different methods (and sometimes combine them) depending on what I think is best at the time. Sometimes I even remember to take pictures of the process.This portrait of Gwyneth (20x24, oil on linen), oil on linen) won the Certificate of Excellence at the Portrait Society of America's International Portrait Competition in Philadelphia this year (2008).
Follow this link to view the rest of this portrait painting tutorial...
Books on Portait Painting & Drawing Technique
Recommend Portrait Painting & Drawing Books From Amazon
Mixed-Media Self-Portraits: Inspiration & Techniques by Cate Coulacos Prato
Featuring artwork from a wide range of contributor more...0 points
Expressive Portraits: Creative Methods for Painting People by Jean Pederson
Paint beautiful and expressive portraits by combin more...0 points
Painting Beautiful Skin Tones with Color & Light by Chris Saper
Artists constantly tell us that they need guidance more...0 points
The Art of Portrait Drawing: Learn the Essential Techniques of the Masters by Joy Thomas
Every artist dreams of drawing people with the sam more...0 points
Oil Painting Portraits (Art School) by Ray Smith
Turn the page of Oil Painting Portraits -- and dis more...0 points
Portraits in Oil the Van Wyk Way by Helen Van Wyk
Helen Van Wyk mastered the art of portraiture by u more...0 points
Pastel: Portraits (HT240) by Ken Goldman
In this book, Ken Goldman invites you into his art more...0 points
Painting Watercolor Portraits by Al Stine
Popular artist Al Stine shares his secrets and tec more...0 points
Conversations on Twitter About Portrait Painting
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- abysmalred
- Stunning time lapse of @Phadroid painting a self portrait: http://bit.ly/8zXwgX Wow.
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- antoniarolls
- Well. Painting an Angel for little girl today. Had lots of tea, do you want your portrait done? I think you should,big or small, contact me
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- playflashgames
- New Flashgame added: Ben 10 Real Painting Portrait - http://bit.ly/8LQNQH
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- demontpeekaso
- @EstelleDarlings question who gave u ur first painting in dc ? self portrait
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- SEORanking
- Unusual Gift Idea From Portrait Painting Gallery http://bit.ly/7WqWaF
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- giocamus
- Pubblicato un nuovo gioco: "Ben 10 Real Painting Portrait" http://tinyurl.com/yf3a7dy
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- workPhotoshop
- Painting the Women Portrait http://bit.ly/6ZTDbV #Photoshop
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- csrock2138
- Play Ben 10 Real Painting Portrait a Free Game at Fupa Games http://bit.ly/6RFayB
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- TutorialPro
- Painting the Women Portrait http://tutorial-pro.com/2009/12/painting-the-women-portrait/
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- Photoshop_GU
- Painting the Women Portrait http://bit.ly/4rcUqi #Photoshop
automatically generated by Twitter
Portrait Painting Tutorial Using Genesis Heat Set Paints
By Leslie Tribolet
Leslie Tribolet lives on Kauai with her husband and her animals. She studied at Santa Barbara Art Institute back in the 70's, but with pencil as her medium of choice.During her battle with both cervical and breast cancer, she decided she learn something new, so she took up painting as a hobby. She dabbled in watercolors and loved them, but seemed that everyone on Kauai was painting with watercolors, and that she found to be boring%u2026..
She was introduced to the Genesis Heat Set Paints in 2007, and loved it because of the ease of finishing her work quickly, without having to wait for the paint to dry and it was "different".
These paints are dried with heat, (heat gun or an oven) which speeds up the process and it is great, especially with living in the humid air of Hawaii. She has always been drawn to ethnic faces, so she decided to try her hand at painting them with these paints, and it worked. She hopes that you enjoy looking at them as much as she enjoys painting them.
Follow this link to view Leslie's portrait painting tutorial using Genesis Heat Set Paint
If you like this Lens, be a sport and leave some feedback.
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- lovemybob lovemybob May 9, 2009 @ 1:24 pm
- Informative lens, congratulations! Welcome to the Painting Group with another great lens!
Pencil Drawing Tips
Learn How To Draw the Female Eye With Faith Te
Here is the first tutorial from Art Studio - a female eye. My method in graphite pencil drawing aims to render subjects as realistically as I can. The following is a step-by-step demonstration of how I draw eyes. While I very much hope that it helps you in drawing realistic eyes, do experiment and develop your own way of drawing. I myself sometimes do not follow some of the steps exactly as I like to experiment and try to find better ways of achieving a specific texture or effect....Please follow this link to view this step by step drawing demonstration.
Portrait Drawing and Painting Blog Posts from Google
- nappap-workshops: NAPPAP Workshops Coming up in 2010
- Fredericksburg Artists School. Colleen K. Howe Oasis in the Desert. Jill Carver Plein Air Painting in Sedona. Jill Carver Painting Colorado Fall Color. Jill Carver 'Plein Air Landscape Painting'. Jeanne Mackenzie Carmel, CA Plein Air ...
- Logan Hagege: Portrait Painting Workshop Announced
- Logan Hagege said... Hi Sara, Yes portrait drawing is so important. In my classes students have a choice of painting or drawing. I always try to urge my students to draw as much as possible. December 4, 2009 12:02 PM ...
- I Paint The Blues So I Don't Have To Live The Blues: Today's Daily ...
- Today's Daily Art: Portrait of Norm. iPhone Painting: Pencil drawing, iPhone Painting, Brushes app: This is an image I paint often. It is an image that has a lot of power for me. When I was a kid, I had friend named Norm. ...
- GCA Blog: portrait drawing/painting workshop with Camie Davis
- portrait drawing/painting workshop with Camie Davis. Here are some photos from Camie Davis' portrait workshop that just finished. Workshops are over for the summer and we're spending the next week cleaning the studios so that fall ...
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I am an artist, musician, web designer and online business owner. I am passionate about the arts and interested in sharing my knowledge and experienc... (more)
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