| There are different genres of painting. A painter can either paint a portrait, a landscape or a still life. This article will be discussing the genre of portrait painting and some advices as to how to start painting portraits.
Portrait Painting has the following principles and characteristics:
1. Portraits are painted to achieve a likeness of the person sitting or a model. Unless the artist you chose really sucks and you might just end up looking like stick figures on a canvass.
2. Portraits are done to preserve the identity of a person for future generations. Portraits were mostly done before the arrival of photography. Your great great grand kids can be bale to see where they got good or bad genes from.
3. They are meant to create a souvenir of those people we hold special who are now deceased or absent. If you wanted to have a portrait of your boss, I think it’s just sucking up.
4. Portraits help hold a public image that emphasizes the status of the person on the picture. Imagine a portrait picture of the president of a country. When one sees that portrait, he feels the person in the painting is really of utmost importance.
5. A portrait helps record the response of the artist to the presence of the living subject. If he draws you in a very creepy manner, you may punch him in the face cause that’s how he sees you, unless maybe you really look that way.
6. It helps represent the dignity and nobility of the human subject. It might help corrupt politicians to regain their dignity even at least in a portrait.
7. A portrait is able to explore the personality or the psychology of the sitter. When you’re sitting there for a long period of time and you feel that you’re developing a hemorrhoid, you’d obviously looked pissed off.
8. For the artist, since painting a model is hard, it helps him develop more painting skills. So remember do not choose an amateur artist to do your portrait as he will only make you a practice model and you’ll have to endure long hours before seeing am acceptable portrait.
Here are some general advices when doing portrait paintings:
• Try to use the appropriate in preliminary work. Mediums such as pencils to make a detailed sketch can help. If you have accidentally put his left eye on his right eye you can still erase it.
• Never make the face of the model full size. The model might look like a puffer fish. The normal limit is two thirds and the half-size is the safe choice.
• Try not to have a large canvas, because you will be obliged to fill that up. You might even make the body of the model more buff just to fit the canvass but it shall look unrealistic.
• Make sure that the lighting can help give strength and character to the face. If you are having a hard time, maybe putting on a full shadow effect can help so that you’ll only do shadings.
• The model should be close to you so that details of certain features in the face may not be lost.
• Try to make the triangle between the eyes and nose your reference point.
By learning more about portraits, I do hope that you can be able to develop your talent or your new hobby into something great. If your painting become the talk of the party, always remember this article helped you out and do send us a free portrait masterpiece of yours.
We can of course make any landscape oil painting for you here at Direct Portrait.
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