Acrylic portrait painting - A baby

1. Introduction: Hey guys, welcome to my skillshare channel. In this class, I'm going to show how I painted this painting. This is the reference pick I have used. It is a commission work which was given to me by one of my relatives. Firstly, I apologize for my English because I know it's not good. It is not my mother tongue, and that is why I expect you to pardon my English. In this class, I only concentrate in showing the painting work, and that itself has made this video longer. I have skipped the sketching part mainly. This video is divided into two layers. And in each layer, I discuss how I painted face, body, hands, and background. But keep in mind that I did not paint the picture in that order. Strictly hope this video helps in improving your painting. Also be patient, the video is longer. 2. Face layer 1: In any portrait painting, I always start with S because as are the most prominent part in any phase, it where everybody's concentration will be on. If you watch any portrait, the first thing you see is of the person in that painting. Another reason why I start with eyes. I basically think that I'm good at painting. I, it's like a confidence booster for me whenever I start painting. Once I paint in a good way, I'll be confident enough to take over next parts. If you watch how to paint in my channel in Skillshare, you will see that I have repeatedly said that eyeball is never white because it will be having the shadow of eyelashes here. Also, you can see that I haven't painted eyeball as white for skin tone. I am using yellow acer, burned tumber, and burnt sienna along with titanium white. While trying baby's eyes, you should know that it's not in a shape of fish. Usually an adult person's eyes will be in a shape of fish, but for babies it will be more of roundish than like a proper fish shaped eyes. You should take care of that. Shadows are the only thing which differentiate nose from the cheeks. It's not like no, you should not paint it like a nose is different object which is placed on a face. It should blend to the cheeks. And to do that you have to take care of the shadows beside the also the dark area of should gradually become light towards the lips. It should not be simply a dark round thing. Because this is a first layer of painting, I'm just filling in with familiar colors, which I feel would be nearest to what I want to achieve for lips. I am using crimson lake with a lot of water because in the reference photo, the kid is wearing lipstick with all full makeup and all. So I'm using dark color only for the lips. Again, this is just a, I'm only taking care of filling in the right colors along with it. I'm just trying to achieve the actual shape of the lips. That can be achieved only by maintaining the shadows of the part you're painting. I'm only taking care of darker areas and I'm not worrying about the highlights of that part. You can see that I'm using a slightly larger brush to fill in the entire skin, cheeks, and chin of the baby. For the darker areas of the shadows, I'm using burnt sienna. You can see that the face is looking like a doll and not a natural human being because there is no shadow or highlights as of now on that face. As I always say, shadows and highlights are the thing that create that three dimensionality of an object or even a face or anything. Until you take care of shadows and eyelis, it will be just a colored space. That's all. I'm using more of yellow ocher in order to achieve that highlighted cheeks and chin. This is the advantage of painting on a canvas. You can go over as many layers as you want whenever you need it. Since this is also acrylic and not oil paint, it will dry very quickly. Within a few minutes it will be dry and you can go over again over that. As you can see, I was not satisfied with basic color. I had achieved with the tetanium white and burnt umber. I'm using more yellow ocher along with tetanium white and burnt umber to achieve the slightly yellowish highlighted face. Whenever I felt the skin tone is darker, I'm using titanium white with more water to thin it down. For the darker shadows, I have used Siena for the gradual transition from darker shadows to the highlighted part. I mean, that is the mid tones. For mid tones, I'm using burnt umber. The shadows should gradually transition to midtones, and then mid tones should gradually transition to highlights. The many more subtle changes which is happening in the painting a paint on is not recorded in camera or it's not visible in a digital thing. But you have to go through those. You can see that if you observe too keenly, it is visible. Otherwise it cannot be visible. What are the changes happening on the cameras as paint? Also, it's not like I don't paint like shadows, first tones, next highlights, last. You can see that I'm juggling between mid tones and shadows as I paint. Because it is acrylic painting, I don't have to worry about the order so much in oil painted, it is more complex or in water paint for that case also, I'm too careful when I'm painting the edges because that is what determines ness of the reference. If my painting doesn't look like in the photo, then the whole point of commissioning is itself is waste. I have to be careful that I'm painting the baby which is in the photo and every stroke you put in slightly alters the likeness of the person you're painting. Be careful and don't hesitate because it is acrylic and you're painting on canvas so you can always correct your mistakes. Be confident in your bust strokes. Once I painted enough of face, I moved on to here. Just to feel that when you're painting the same thing for a long time, you tend to lose seeing the details there. You know, like your brain start cheating, your eyes start cheating you there. It's advised that you have to not paint a single thing for a long time after painting the face and neck for so much time. I moved on to hair. When painting the hair, that is the key. You don't have to go through every single hair strand. You just fill out the hair with a suitable color and in the suitable direction. The direction is key here. Usually hairs will be flowing in some direction. Always paint hair from the direction of the skull towards outside. 3. Body & Hands layer 1: For the first layer of painting the body and arms of the baby, I'm using the same technique. And the colors which I used for the face, you can see that I'm filling filling out the space with whatever color I feel like. And then I'm adjusting it. Whether I'm adjusting it to the likes of its sylights or shadows using a white and burned sienna. The first layer is about simplifying the process. For example, while painting arms, the main thing is give it the round shape of an arm. That is what it gives the three D like the arms are. In order to achieve the rod, you have to worry about shadow and highlights. Usually either edges of the arms will be in the shadow and the main bulge, that is the center part of the arms, will be in highlights. Also, you can observe that in the reference photo, the light is majorly falling on the left hand side of the baby. Naturally, the right right hand side of the baby will be much darker because it's in shadow compared to the left hand side like this. By simplifying the facts and processes, it will be easier to choose what kind of colors or how to approach the painting. Another thing is usually the babies will be having arms and legs and all there will be wrinkles near the joints and all those wrinkles make our process very easy. Those wrinkles are the one which directs us in achieving the shapes. It's breaking down. The entire hand is easier in babies like shoulders, forearm, et cetera. 4. Background layer 1: Well, starting off this painting, there was the instructions from client that background should be changed. But I didn't have any separate plan for what needs to be done for background in the first layer, I just used the left to play paint and thought of painting it as like vertical squares and horizontal squares for the background. Again, this was like unplanned and usually I don't worry much about background, but what I do is in Stave pal paper will be spoiled after some days because of repetitive wetness which is difficult to paint in that paper. What I do is, before throwing out that paper, I use all those remaining paint to paint the background of my paintings. Because acrylic, you can paint over the layer even if you have painted this background layer u. Going forward, you will know that how I changed my background background layer many more times. 5. Face layer 2: Welcome to the second layer painting of baby's face. This layer is all about fine tuning. Whatever I did in the first layer of painting face, as in the first layer, I start this layer also from working on the eyes of the baby. You can see that I'm taking more detailed approach in this layer, like adding eyelashes, working on the shadows, and blending it finally with mid tones and highlights. Since it's been some days after I have painted the first layer of face, I can see clearly where I need to change or fine tune the highlights and shadows. It's like my eyes has started grabbing more details easily, which I had missed earlier. Also, you can see that I'm not using larger brushes in this layer because in first layer, it was more like filling the blanks with whatever color you thought is right. But in this layer, it's filling the blanks anymore. In this layer, I'm working on highlights, mid tones and shadows simultaneously without giving much gap. Because acrylic dries quickly and it's hard to blend. If I delay that, smooth, gradual blending of the skin tone is what gives the smooth look of the baby's face. Oh, being said about smooth blending, we should not overdo it. Every human will be having some wrinkles on his face. For example, here the baby is clenching his chin which has caused the wrinkles there. The color should be more patchy rather than smooth blending. Those details are important in painting a portrait. As the details are added, the more pleasing the painting looks, you can see the baby's face and feel the smoothness of his cheeks. 6. Body & hands layer 2: Like I did for painting the second layer of phase here. Also, I use the same color combination to ease out the pache kind of areas and smoothen the transition between highlights, midtones, and shadows. It may take, frustratingly, several mix and match of color to achieve the same intensity or saturation or lightness of face. But we have to be patient enough to go through that phase to find the similar color intensity for body, which is same as face. Otherwise the body looks like a different object attached to a baby's face. Even though I have said that it is the second layer, you can see that this layer itself is a combination of multiple layers where I have been painting light over dark and dark over light to achieve the smooth transition and smoothness of the skin. You can note that the body is not as bright or fair as the face of the baby because there is a shadow on body. The body should be slightly darker compared to the face. However, the shoulders are getting some light compared to that of chest. Those parts are slightly brighter, although not as face when we see the photo. When we see the photo before beginning the painting, we think that the complex part to paint are the wrinkles. But according to me, or at least as far as I am concerned, wrinkles and skin foldings are far easier to paint compared to the plain soft skin areas. Please do commend what gives more bad time for you guys while painting. You can already see that the left hand of baby is smoothened out which was way too patchy before. But at this point, a thought which came to my mind was the baby holding the cow, especially its left hand is o, I thought I have to somehow cover it up. I skipped working more on left hand, which is not required. If I cover it up, even if I decide not to cover it up, I can come back and work on it. So that was not a big deal even with the right hand fingers to I did not work too much in detail on that consciously. A. 7. Background layer 2: Initially when I saw the reference pick, the only thought I had in mind was I have to change the background. I didn't know what I have to do for background. As I said earlier, I used the remaining paint before I throw the palette paper to use it to paint some kind of background layer. At this stage also, I was not sure what I have to do for background. I used the remaining paint and painted the background both vertically and horizontally to check whether that mosaic pattern does look good for a background or not. And it was pretty disappointing for the next layer. I painted the remaining paint, excluding dark colors, like black, et cetera, in a single direction that is vertical in this case. So that even a plain background may look good for this painting that found to be dissatisfactory too. You can see how it looked after the plain background. It is after I completed the painting of the baby, including the jewels and object, that something flashed to my mind which solved the background puzzle. For me, it is the role the baby is playing there. The baby with all the jewels and traditional Indian dress to depict one of the character in Indian mythology, that is the elder brother of Lord Chli Krishna. His name is Lord Balarama. According to Indian mythology, in childhood, both Krishna and Balarama were brought up in the village called Brundavan as sons of King Nanda. The major revenue of the people of Brundawany and its by products, cow herds. And that is why the baby is holding an object which is cow feeding her calf. During childhood, both Krishna and Balarama used to play in the gardens and jungle and the forest surrounding the Brundawan and these stories are like legendary. I decided the background should somehow depict a garden or anything sort of nature. So I collected some random reference pictures of forest flowers, lush green valleys, et cetera from Internet and started abstractly building the Lori Cron. There was no meticulous painting done for flowers. I wanted it to be a rough abstract depiction. L, bright colors like yellow and orange to paint the flowers. To paint the flowers against the green background. To add some more, we look, I used blue colored flowers over those yellow orangish flowers, and I found that it looked more pleasing. As I said, in previous layer, I wanted something to take the attention of beavers from the baby's hands, which is odd. It is holding the cows statue. I used the same blue color to paint a bigger flower at the baby's hands so that it can distract the attention away from the hands. O, and that's how the background was made and it definitely made the painting look better without dominating the main subject of the painting. 8. Conclusion: With some corrections here and there I finally completed the painting. I know it's not a perfect painting in all, but you have to remember the perfection in art is a journey and it does not stop with this artwork. I hope this class has helped you in some way and inspired you to paint one for yourself. Who knows, you guys may be artist, Stan myself. Thank you for watching guys. Let's meet in next painting class.