Portrait Painting

I took a portrait painting class as a follow up to my Intro to Oils class. This class was acrylic or oil optional. The first session I tried acrylic, but I quickly realized that with a live model, acrylics just dry too quickly to be useful. So for the rest of the classes I used oils.

I'm not really sure how I feel about this class or the results. I went into the class feeling like it would be an easy transition from the last class, considering I draw faces for a living. I quickly found out that painting portraits would me much more challenging than I thought. When drawing I can usually get a likeness when I want to. But for some reason, in every class, I couldn't get one piece to look like the model. Unlike the previous painting class, I left every class quite frustrated.

Here are some samples, but there's not much I can say about them. I must be perfectly honest: None of these are 100 percent my work. The instructor would go around the class (which by the end was all of 2 people), and pick up a brush and fix problems with our paintings. Not to say this method didn't teach me anything, but I think I would have preferred more verbal instruction to go along with it. But if i had to put a number on it I would say these are about 85% my work. But the 25% that looks good on all these is the instructor, who is a very talented painter.

I have, however, enjoyed the process. I am beginning to get the hang of paint. This is definitely something I want to do more of on my own, and definitely something I want to improve upon. So I'm sure you will see more paintings in the future.

O Brother

Here are some sketches I did a month or so ago. They are from one of my favorite movies, "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" I love the color schemes of that whole movie. I've been thinking (once I get my painting skills up) of doing a good finished piece based on the characters. Enjoy these till then.