Life model
Painting a portrait from life? Do you work a lot from photography? There is nothing wrong with that, I have said so often. It gives you the opportunity to calmly create a portrait with good likeness and time to mix the colours at ease. It is also often a fantastic picture that invites you to make a beautiful painting.
But there are also pitfalls, namely that you create a too detailed reproduction of the photo. That is a missed opportunity. A painting must be your interpretation and not a copied image.
Painting a portrait from life
Study as much as possible with a live model. You will be amazed what new skills you will discover.
I told you, we do portrait live sessions every Tuesday afternoon in my studio. We will be painting a portrait from life. Real painting time around one hour. Here I show you three stages. Before starting I gave the canvas a very thin wash of crimson. I started in oils directly, in raw umber. Diluted with citrus terpentine, almost painting like watercolour. Adding the colours I did not use any medium.
See also this post
And this post
Dear Mr Lustenhouwer . Firstly I would like to say how great your work is .I myself have recently purchased my first portrait colours .They are cad red medium , yellow ochre and raw umber . I was wondering if I should include any other colours? Any help you could give me would be great .many thanks Dan .