3 of 12

Write now Article Tools

Painting portraits is a challenging task and it takes a great deal of practice. Start with drawing in black and white: charcoal, pencil, or ink and brush. To get the feel for the values of skin, hair, and clothing it is best to use monotone before you work with colors. Just speaking for my own experience, it was years before I became comfortable using skin tones in paint and I still have a long way to go until I am truly satisfied with my efforts.

The human head is nothing like how we used to draw faces in elementary school. The eyes are not in the upper one-third of the head as we often think. If you observe from life, you will notice that the eyes are actually placed at a halfway point between the top of the head and the chin. You will notice many other interesting facts as you draw from a live model that will surprise you.

There are many books and magazines that offer helpful hints and "how to" instructions for portraits. I find that these are useful in finding your own way but do not get frustrated if you cannot mimic the author's methods. Take what you can from each source and experiment on your own, too.

Get someone to sit for you while you practice your portrait drawing skills. Use a strong light source to give you the shapes and the tones of shadows. Many times, people try to draw or paint portraits using photographs or their imaginations and this is much more difficult than using a live model. The strong light source will give you shadows and the forms of the face will become more clear for you. It takes hours, weeks and years to develop the skills of portraiture for many people, this author included. There is nothing more frustrating than to try to get a likeness of a person and have your work look nothing like how you want. Practice makes perfection more likely, however.

There is so much to learn about portraiture, from rendering a likeness, to how to paint hair that looks realistic, to mixing the colors of skin. Here are a few tips to help the process. Do not be afraid to draw a lot of versions of the same portrait and the same person. It is very time consuming until your skills are developed and do not become discouraged.

Remember that skin color is not one "flesh" color but a combination of rose, white, oranges, blues, and other colors you may not ever think are skin colors. Experiment with these colors to get the skin colors you may need: liberal amounts of white, crimson, yellow ochre, rose madder, blues, burnt umber, sienna, and others as you have available. There are "flesh" colors marketed as such but there is no comparison to hues you can mix yourself.

Continue to practice and simply observe the differences in people's skin, eye and hair color.

Learn more about this author, Brenda G. Koscelny.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.

Add your voice

Know something about Portrait painting tips?
We want to hear your view. Write now!