Creating a recognisable portrait: a hundred different babies - "Caitlin" WIP5-8
Have you ever struggled to make your human portraits resemble whom they're supposed to? Do your portraits go through numerous renditions on the way to being finished? Perhaps moreso than with any other subject, the human face poses difficulties for the artist because the slightest change in proportion, shadow, highlight, colouration or form causes the portrait to become less-recognisable as the individual under scrutiny. Upon first glance a portrait may seem to resemble the i
How to paint layered complex backgrounds in pastel - "Dejected" WIP time lapse video
How do you tackle a pastel painting where the background is quite complicated and layered? Like a mess of foliage or branches? How do you retain your detailed initial sketch without making the background feel 'segmented' - as though you are just 'painting between the branches'? Too often when I look at acrylic paintings, they appear flat or two dimensional because the background has been added as an afterthought (painted in around the subject), or the artist has used an airbr
