Drawer

Monochrome portrait challenge

Day 1: here I followed Jane's method closely, but I brought a little bit of my style into the painting by leaving some hard edges around the highlights. 

Monochrome portrait challenge - image 1 - student project

Day 2: I immediately fell in love with this one, so I followed Jane to the letter. It was a good decision, as this painting is my absolute favorite of all. 

Monochrome portrait challenge - image 2 - student project

Day 3: I'm not so happy with this one. The pencil sketch turned out really good, but then the dark washes made me lose the pencil marks. She ended up kind of puffy and weird. Anyway, we learn from our mistakes!

Monochrome portrait challenge - image 3 - student project

Day 4: I feel like this one is the perfect blend of Jane's style and mine. I love it, it was so much fun to paint!

Monochrome portrait challenge - image 4 - student project

Day 5: Wow, the eyes were a real challenge here! For this one I went back to following Jane's approach closely. 

Monochrome portrait challenge - image 5 - student project

Day 6: I feel like this one ended up a bit overworked. On the other hand, I just love the technique of lifting those tiny eyelash highlights with a knife! 

Monochrome portrait challenge - image 6 - student project

Day 7: Yay, the final portrait! Here I watched the video the day before painting, in order to apply Jane's techniques without strictly following the video. 

Monochrome portrait challenge - image 7 - student project

Thank you for this fun challenge, Jane! Working with one color and focusing on value is such a valuable lesson. Also, less is often more, and monochrome portraits definitely stand their ground beside multicolor paintings.