With the portrait today I decided to go smaller again, just so I could maybe come to more of a conclusion and to force myself to simplify and stuff.

#portrait #portraitpainting #painting #oilpainting #allaprima #drawing #portretschilderij #schilderen #kunst #art #mastoart #fediart

@Ulisu how small is that? It's beautiful!
@lps thank you :) it’s 18x24 cm
well, that's quite brilliant...

@Ulisu I think it's great! There's so much good in limiting and challenging one's self.

I couldnt really make out at first whether her neck had lace detail or a tattoo or an ornate necklace. (Thanks for alt Text!)
But it doesn't really matter. We can tell that she adorned herself in some way and that says a lot about her persona without drawing too much attention from the portrait itself. Very well done!

@megaphon oh thank you! Yeah she was a great model, sat very still too! When composing something like this, I wasn’t really that focused on the character. Most of the composition decisions are done in like the first five minutes and I literally have known that person for that amount of time. I just looked and liked how the hair was framing her tattoo and her face and how it flowed together with the folds on the background. It’s mostly about pictorial, abstract arrangements, at least at first.

@Ulisu

Weird question but do you sometimes halfly close your eyes when you check how it's going?

When I look at it half closed it looks just super realistic, this is so good especially with such a rough pencil. (I'm totally not jealous, nono, not at all *ahum..* )

@itchi5 yeah I do the ole squinting every now and then while painting :) however, even more important is to be precise with the values, meaning that every shape must be compared to every other shape in terms of brightness. Squinting helps to make that more visible too so it’s a good technique.

On an even more tangential note I use several gestalts to imbue a sense of light/form/whatever. In this case I heavily used value shifts with the background in the hair and blouse

@Ulisu

Sounds complicated, but the results are def. worth it.