Painting Portrait Tips / Lots of information about how to paint a portrait
Develop your drawing skills.
In order to learn portrait painting properly, it is essential to develop your drawing skills. Actually that applies to all forms of realistic art. I had the good fortune to have had an excellent drawing training at a young age. However, I know that many of you do not.
More than once people asked how a novice portraitist must decide his prices. I remember I once said: If you don’t have any orders you are either too expensive, or you have too little quality. If you have too many commissions, it may be that you are too cheap.
An interesting book that I am currently reading is “The lives of Jan Six”, written by the Dutch historian Geert Mak. I do not know if there is an English translation. Continue reading “Art flows to where the money is”
In addition to my previous post.
I was a young kid, maybe ten years old. I really wanted to learn to draw. I practised a lot. But I already knew that exercise alone was not enough. I would also have to purchase study books. However it still took some years before I would convert my plan into action. Money was scarce at our house: we were eight children. Eight mouths to be fed; eight children to be clothed. One day, the sixties had dawned and a fledging financial relief appeared on the horizon: I received my initial pocket money! (The first 10 cents I spent on a bag of new nails. I liked carpentry and was tired of straightening and reusing the rusty, bent nails as my father showed me.)
After months and months of saving I gathered enough capital to proceed with the purchase. I remember I walked into the book store. I went straight to the small section arts and crafts, right to the book that I had already browsed through so many times: ZO LEER JE TEKENEN (This way you learn how to draw). I settled the bill, the book was neatly packed, and I left the shop. Proud as a peacock I went home.
I really don´t remember if I studied a lot from that book. I will have examined the pictures, but much text I will have skipped. I had mild difficulty with written text. And for many theories I was too impatient. Still the book is in my library and occasionally I look through it. The work is far too difficult for a young kid, I know now. Later genuine drawing skills I learned from Beatus Nijs. I am still grateful to have had the opportunity to follow his classes. (see below)
These days I am reading the book “Man with a Blue Scarf” by Martin Gayford. It is on sitting for a portrait by Lucian Freud. Good books can take possession of your mind for days. It’s like when you spend some time in a boat and you are accustomed to the constant wobbling. Once on shore you find yourself still waddling. You must readjust. Yesterday and today I have been painting the portrait of the man in the picture above and the spirit of Lucian Freud is present at the sessions. His quotes are constantly itching in my mind.
Such as: “The longer you look at an object, the more abstract it becomes, and, ironically, the more real”.
Or: ” I paint people not because of what they are like, not exactly in spite of what they are like, but how they happen to be.
And “I would wish my portraits to be of the people, not like them. Not having a look of the sitter, being them”.
Time and again, I have to clear my mind because these lingering thoughts intervene. I must concentrate on my job, the sitter and me.
Good books.
Long time ago I worked as a commercial illustrator. My agent was Art Box in Amsterdam. The owner became a good friend. I remember he lent us his car for two month when our daughter was born. “You need a car” was what he said. And indeed a car was most welcome at the time. That was in 1984. Once he gave me a book: “Rockwell on Rockwell”, subtitle “How I make a picture”.
Thinking it over, after all these years, this book made a fundamental change in my approach to how I was working until then. The manner Rockwell explained his “way” to a good painting, how he prepared his work, made me realize the importance of a controlled approach, and later I elaborated this way of working to my portrait painting. I am convinced that separating the main issues in portrait painting can help to overcome problems. Now I call it My Method, well regarded that is nonsense: of course it is not my own invention. I owe thanks to a lot of other art teachers, that I came across in books over the years. And last but not least I learned a lot of the Great Masters of painting like Velazquez, Rembrandt, Sorolla etc. But Rockwell opened my eyes.
Another book that was of fundamental value: Het Tekenen van de mens by Hatton & de Hey. I had to buy this book at the suggestion of Beatus Nijs, my drawing teacher when I was young. Still sometimes I consult this book.
Long time ago I bought a second hand copy of the book Creative Illustration by Andrew Loomis. A spanish version that I could lay my hands on in the Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid. I knew the book from a friend. Long time this book has been my bible, still I look through it once and a while. Excellent explanations on how to draw, how to make a good compositions etc etc. Now this book and some more titles are available in PDF. For free!
