Transcripts
1. Introduction: Hello everyone. I'm presenting my oil portrait painting course, which is accessible for everyone, whether you have a big studio or just a tiny table. If you want to know how to create vibrant oil portraits in a fast, easy and organized way. This course is just for you. I know there can be a lot of fear around oil painting and I want to make sure there will be no more. You will learn a thing or two about color, painting techniques, value, and I will also guide you on how to paint according to a reference. Then we'll finish off by varnishing are completed portraits. I hope you'll have fun.
2. Supplies: Let's go through everything I'm going to be using to complete this portrait. I am demonstrating this glass on a standard 9240 centimeter table, so you don't need any large spaces to start. I'll be painting. A very small table will do just fine. You won't need to protect your table so it will not get dirty. I am using a standard kitchen glove, but you can use any cloth you find at home, even newspaper or a kitchen towel. However, I prefer using something like a glove so you could reuse it and one need to create any extra dispose. Now on to abating surface, I'm going to be painting this class portraits on an oil paper. This is from a brand called Artesia, and it's a classic acrylic oil vapor Canvas. If you're just starting out, I would highly recommend using oil papers as you can practice loads on this, make mistakes. Do imperfect art exedra, rather than investing your money in expensive canvases, please feel free to use a classic Canvas if you want to. But I think that oil paper is an amazing option. These days. They are really high-quality and durable, used by professionals as well. I will link some of my favorite brands in the class description. And the most important thing are, of course, paints. These are artist grade paints from a brand called Gamblin amazing paints. So I would definitely recommend dose. However, if you're just starting out, feel free to use student oil grade paints as dose are cheaper and also you could practice with those. See if you like oil painting and then you could invest in professional pains. There is a difference between a professional set of paints and an artist set of paints. The art is great. Ones have more pigment and a student grades are much more diluted. I have made this painting with just the student grade. So you can definitely bend beautiful pictures just with the cheaper ones. However, if money is not the issue for you, jumping straight on the artist grade paints is definitely worth it as you will have much, but the time painting with them, when it comes to brushes, you will know which ones to use when you paint. I would buy the classic set of brushes if you're just starting out. And then the more you go along with painting, you will kind of naturally know what kind of brushes would benefit you to your style of painting. For example, you will be like, oh, this shape would be great for this eyelash 0, this shape of brush would be great for this lock of hair exedra. I would definitely go with your natural instincts as different artists use different brushes. My favorite brushes are filbert brushes. Those ones, as you can see, they are narrow right here and wider here. This makes them really flexible and amazing to paint with. So give them a go, then I have those long handle, filbert as well. Long handles are good for painting bigger pieces, as I would say, you just need to test it out and see what works better for you. A bigger one here I'm using for painting larger areas and the mini one here for details. I have some blending brushes. This one I'm using a lot to blend skin tones and making smoother transitions. Or you could use this for dubbing paint, like to paint clouds for example. And then detailed brushes, of course, for smaller details to lashes, highlights, hair strands and many more. So in terms of brush quality, I don't think you need to buy the most expensive forms in my opinion. I mean, the more expensive ones should last you longer than the cheaper ones. However, in the experience, I destroy all the brushes the same. I mean, I would rather invest in expensive, high-quality oil paintings then into expensive brushes. I think the cheap brush will do just fine. Then there's a palette knife for mixing colors. I would not recommend mixing with brush. Then you will need a palette. I took this class from a picture frame which I bought inbound store and denied to achieve great copy paper and select taped it onto the glass. The reason I'm using gray paper is that it will show you the pigments of the colors better than on transparent glass. I think that any term paper would do, but I have read at a gray paper is definitely the best. When it comes to new mediums, you will need some sort of spirit to dissolve. You're all pains as they are quite thick to paint with. When I'm personally using is Gansu from Gamblin. This is completely other less you have other mediums which stink quite a lot. I've only used some random one from Amazon before which had quite a smell to it and this one doesn't smell 1-bit. So this will dilute your pains and you are good to go. However, if you want to go further, I'm going to be using GSC it so sorry, it's dirty. This is fast drying medium and it makes the layer dry in 24 hours. So if you're an impatient person like me, or you have a deadline and need you finish a painting fast. This is definitely a thing to use. This medium also makes the oil to have a really nice flow and makes it nicer and easier to paint with. There are so many mediums out there on the market, so feel free to experiment. You can also use a classical linseed oil, which will help your pains to make a nicer glowing flow as well. However, it will slow drying time as the more oil you add into oil paints do more time it takes for them to dry. It really all depends on you. If you don't like waiting, Definitely bios and fast drying medium and don't use more oils. You could be good only with using the spirit to dissolve your paints as well, also with the drying I want to add. It also depends on the painting surface as well. Please feel free to ask me anything in the discussion. If you're a bit confused, need something to put the mediums in. So for the spirit, you need a classic jar. You will be able to close as you don't want to toss it or to leave it dissolve for too long. It's the same as when you paint with watercolors or you just need water for DOS and you would pour spirit for oil paints. The unfolded gal kids, I use this little late I took from honey. You can use any small dish you find as you won't mean much, then you will most likely need a tissue to dab your brushes in. Then I would recommend you to protect yourself when you paint with apron or any old clothes as you might get their tea, if you're dirty person like me and I use a glove from my right hand which I paint with. If you're like me, you most likely get paint and you go off as well. And I don't really like sticky hands from oil paints. So this is optional but definitely safer option. I also wanted to add that you could use an easel to paint on. I use my table easily because I don't paint in a large scale. However, if you only have a small table to paint on, it will most definitely do. Or if you have a space to use a big standing easel, go for it, whatever works for you.
3. Values and Colour: Okay, so what do you want to have before you start painting is a sketch. If you don't know how to sketch a phase properly, just use a grid or I have a class on fundaments as well, which should help you to construct a proportionally correct phase or the head. You need to have a general idea of the dark values and the light values. I would recommend choosing a reference like this that have a clear distinction between dark and light shadows. So you could sketch patches like DOS I did right here. Those are the dark shadows. Then you have semitones in between, and then you have lights. Again. If he didn't know anything about light and shadow, I recommend taking my other classes or look it up. When we mix the colors, I will show you a very simple and organized way on how to premix specific tones for specific values and how to paint with values in mind. So now, when you have a clear understanding of the values, I would recommend studying the colors on the face. Remember how we put arise values next to each other to create gradients? Well now you need to do this to create an actual skin zone. First, notice how the phase has a different color area which you most likely will render on your Canvas. Study the colors, notice the transitions between them. Exedra. Notice how the transitions between lights and darks have red rim around it. And since we are here, the phase has three different colored zones. There is a yellow zone, the forehead, the red zone, the ears, eyes, and the cheeks and nose. And a blue or green zone, which is the chin area and down. This doesn't mean that you can't find the redness on the forehead or their chin, but it means that the majority of those colors can be found in the colored zones specific for its color. The major 80 of the forehead is yellow or orange with bits of redness and maybe a little blue or green. There is a lot of redness around the eyes, nose, cheeks, and ears. A lot of it is caused by the effect called the subsurface scattering. You can find it on the ears, here on the nose, lips. This will goes higher, saturated red color. Dan you have cooler tones down into head, around the chin and neck. Because the skin is translucent, you will have a lot of blood vessels coming out on the surface and this will cause the redness and blueness on the face as well. It's helpful to look out for this. When you know how these colored zones work, you could play around with them and exaggerated colors as well. Take a look at this fantasy painting of mine and see an example of exaggerated cheeks.
4. Painting Techniques: I will now demonstrate what is happening on the canvas in terms of painting. So you have a little guidance before you start actually painting the portrait. So let's take a color and then you are literally putting shapes next to each other and creating a gradient like this. Now I have a very rough value system here. Let me show you how I'm mixing the colors on the palette. Then you create a smoother transition, clean your brush, and tried to mix a shade which is between these two shades and put it in between like this. See how it created a smoother transition than a watch how I'm mixing a tone between these two. And you literally go back and forth and play around with this until you have your desired set of values. What do you now can do depends on nu is to help yourself and make the transition even smoother with this dry blending brush, for example, when it comes to painting skin tones, there are a lot of transition between colors and it is really hard sometimes, especially if you're a beginner. But please tried to create the desired tone on your palette rather than blending on the Canvas. Do this only very lightly and slightly to help yourself. You don't have to do this at all. I like to paint very smoothly, so I sometimes soften that transition like this. But some artists pain with very much visible brushstrokes, don't forget to clean your brush with a tissue in between smoothing out what this does and you most likely want to avoid is that it will take the pigment away and make your paint strokes muddy like this. And that's why you need to do this very carefully. I will show you what you definitely don't want to do. Don't blend two values that are 25 barred from each other in order to create in-between value on your canvas like this. See how I created a nice gradient by mixing every tone on the ballot, you could most likely just dab a little to blend Yellowstone's even further with a dry brush. But can you see how it's taking the color out? Avoid doing this. Don't drop the colors too much on the Canvas. Let me just show you two premix tones of purple and orange. Dan, you can stop here or a good blended with a dry brush. As you can see, all the colors look very dilute. This is going to be fixed. Then you add layers later on.
5. Mixing Colour: Before we start mixing colors, I want you to know that I came up with my own simple organized method. Being organized while mixing colors is really important and also you don't want to over-complicate it. Stick to only a few colors on your palette, which you choose at the beginning, plus maybe one or two favorite colors. That's how we achieve color harmony. Okay, So we will begin by mixing our color palette. I will put in the reference so you know where I'm going with this. So I will show you a very basic approach to how I'm using these colors. I'm going to be using titanium white, then Naples yellow. Oops, it's a bit oily. Then I have quinacridone magenta as our red. Then we have cobalt blue. And then I have burnt umber as our round. So as you can see, I have used only three basic colors from which I can mix any color I want. So that's red, blue, and yellow. Please do study color theory if you know absolutely nothing about it. And then I have white to lighten the color up and dark brown to create dark tones. Also remember that whites and yellows lighten the color up, and then blues and reds darken it up. I always choose only one dark to work with dark values. It usually is brown or gray, depends on what I want to do. Now, let's mix the skin tones first. So first I'm going to mix the local color on the face while observing the reference. It appears to be this yellowish greenish tone. I always start with white as we are now mixing the lighter areas, the lights then add a bit of yellow. Don't overdo it with the amount of colors when mixing. Only a little bit of color can change the don't significantly. So rather add little bilateral. So for example, this type of red is a very pigmented one, so be careful and take less. Then you want to add blue as well as it will cause the color tone to be less saturated and more greenish. Usually the skin tones contain all of the colors only in different amounts. Then we will mix it up and see how it's gonna turn out. So this is very bluish, so we need more yellow. See, so you need to test it out in order to create your desired outcome. It takes practice, but always work with all of these colors when creating the skin tones. I would also add that when you are mixing, tried to always mix the colors as a shade lighter than it appears on the reference. In my experience, the color always is darker when you paint it on the canvas there, on the ballot. I think that the human identity to exaggerate colors because you see red, then you mix red, but you don't realize that the red in reality, a pace much less saturated and a lighted and how you perceive it, it needs much more yellow. It is starting to look really nice. It needs more blue now, which is going to desaturated as blue will cancel out the speech ER, which don't see, I just took a tiny bit, but I think I still overdid it. Yellow and blue equals green. And we do need grain because her skin color has a slight greenish tint to it. Now it looks really nice with the local color which you will be using the most, I would say, when mixing skin tones don't be too concerned about getting it completely a 100 percent realistically accurate. You want, achieve it anyway, go with your preferences or with the closest stones possible. Every artist mixes colors differently, then we have the local color ready. We will mix one lighter tone for the lightest areas just by adding white. Now for the redness would I usually do is mix two type of thread. One and bit more purplish and what, a bit more orangey. The face usually contains both warmer reds and cooler reds. As you can see, we are now using the same colors but in different amounts. Of course, now I'm going to add more red as I need a reddish tones. So read Daniel tins it the way you need it. Now let's take blue to achieve more purplish tone. So this is a purple tone. It really is about perception. If you are creating tones, focus more on your personal feeling and what you like. I don't mean if their lips are red, you would mix blue. I mean, you can if you want, but it's more like Wow, This looks amazing when this blue in it, or this green looks great with this color in it, exedra, and that's how you create your personal world. I really like creating colors which I love. So this one is really nice and I think it would look interesting on the face. I still needed to balance it out with more yellow because if I created purple or low-weight, red and blue, it would be too cool and it wouldn't match the portrait. Dead. Let's add more yellow in order to create a warmer red. Always don't forget to include the opposite color on the color veer too desaturated. That is really important if you want to create more realistic skin tones and colors. I mean, if your intention is to create saturated paintings, then yeah, but closer to reality, the colors are never that saturated. So for example, if you want to create orange, never used on new red and yellow, always tone it down a little bit with the lighter green or blue. So we have a nice two shades of red. We can work with what we can now do. If you want to create more gradients, then we can add more white to lighten it up. It will make it easier for you as you will need to mix fewer colors later as you will be painting. And see by adding white color completely cooled down. So I still need to tint it a little bit with yellow to warm radar as I didn't want it to cool. Sometimes I premix some color which I never use. So you will see after the first layer, I always like to premix lighter tones as well, so I have a better flexibility on the ballot. Just take these pre mixing process slowly. You don't need to play mix all the colors on the reference. It is really up to you. The key is just to have the base colors. Now let's mix the semitones. It appears to me that those are a bit greenish, bluish man, maybe more greenish. So you can use the local color and darken it up now by adding more colors and not adding more Revit, the dawn will automatically darken up. If we would want to lighten it up again, we would have to mix in worldwide. After I finished painting the first layer, I would then see it more clearly by actually putting it on the paper. Then I can alter it according to my liking. So this stone is like a transition between the light tones and dark tones which we are going to mix next. See you have to always balance it out with all three colors. Now when we have the darkest light donors, I would call it, Let's mix the darkest shadows. Now as the Brown already contains all of the colors, what I'm going to do here is add only blue to it, as it appears to mean that the darker tone has a slight bluish tone to it. I always think the dark tone with only one or two other colors. See how it has this really nice bluish thing. So for the darks, I'm going to mix only one color and the mixing with other colors I pre-mixed here, I usually mix more dark tones, at least one more light to one, but I didn't. You can mix it up as you go as the dark zones are usually a bit muddy anyway. So I will take the advantage of it. Okay, So this will do us good. Who the beginning I would say. So again, you will need light semitones and dark tones. You can mix them together, then you will need other skin colors, like reds potentially in there are also blues on the skin. However, I don't think those are important and this class is only about simplicity.
6. Reference Painting - First Facial Layer: Okay, So now let's begin painting. We need to mix our mediums before. First, I pour in a little of the spirit gums, or in my case, when I took this little dish, then I will put just a little of the fast drying medium GKE, denied. Take the super dirty or old brush and dip some spirit in today's and create a mixture. Put a first layer you want to have less Gulf, good and moral GSL because the earlier layers should be more diluted. That means you will be using more paint each layer. Then you need a tissue for wiping your brushes into. Just let me organize myself a little. Then if the graphite on your sketch is very visible, you would want to take a kneadable eraser and erase a little bit. Not too much as you still want to see the initial portrait sketch for you to paint in. I wouldn't be too worried though, because you will most likely cover those with oil paints. I always begin painting the eyes as I think they are the most important aspect of the face. So deep your brush into your medium just a tiny bit. Otherwise it will dissolve your pains too much. You will have to try to get the hang of it. So I always say the darkest tone and begin to fill in the darkest shadows and lines of the face like the eyes enough tools and delete line. I'm actually not sure why I do this. It's just, it gives me a good anchor points. I guess. I am using more detailed brush for this. Notice how I'm switching brushes while painting. Now, I'm painting the darkest areas of the eyes. Let's take rule here and start filling out the iris. So I have mixed the blue with the dark tone because it is not the colors straight from the tube. I usually never use colors straight from the tube. I always mix it. You have to also blend it all together with the dark lines to create more realistic effect. I didn't premix the iris blue before as there's not that many colored present. So you can mix the tone on your palate. You constantly need to go back and forth with the colors. So now I'm taking the dark color again and going over it. I mixed a little white in the iris blue in order to shade the middle a bit lighter. Now, I also mixing the eye white with a little bloom as the whites are bluish, I mix the white with my pre-mixed lightest stone in order to match the two portraits colors. And then I darken them up, the dark zone as they appear darker according to the reference. Don't forget to shade the eyeballs as well. And notice how I'm painting orange around the pupils and on the whites. Notice those colors on the photo reference and then go back and forth and shaded. Don't forget to blend the iris into the highlights. You can also suggest the highlights. Notice I'm shading orange from the tear duct. Now, we are actually starting to build up the colors. So take a tone and then put another next to it. Notice I am actually mixing the dark door with the red because the red surround the eye are not so saturated. So I'm trying to make a tone closest to the one on the reference. And also it is part of the dark shadow. So that's why I'm using dark tone right now. Also, don't forget to clean your brush in-between color changing. So observe the reference and tried to replicate the color you are seeing and connect them all together on the paper. It does take practice, but I will trust your natural instincts and Gamble for sure, make it right. Just don't get too caught up on my technique. Only take what you can from it and do it. How you would do it. Use your best abilities to create a functioning phase. And then I constantly go back and forth to revoke it according to my liking. Please note that this is the first layer and the colors will look very pale and diluted. Don't worry about it as nothing is set in stone and is following some basically just shading the upper plate which has a shape of an oval. The middle has the most light, so it's going to be the lightest and then it does gradually go to the darkest tones. So when we started shading from the upper layer of the eye, we use the dark tone and mix it together with the red tones. Now, as we go up, it is getting lighter. So you would actually use the semitones now to make the reds and oranges with. And then as you go completely up, you will use the lights and then you will just use delights without the reds. So literally create gradients like this. Now, as we move up, we actually made a gradient from the dark histones onto the lightest tone. So try to connect them all together and make it a smooth as possible. I hope you know or understand where I'm going with this. Now. I am still using our own direct zone to create the eyebrow. Keep in mind that you constantly have to blend these together. Like you wouldn't want to have a sharp edge to the eyebrow when there is none, you would want to create a tone in between the eyebrows and the ones that are surrounding the eyebrow and paint it in like I'm doing here. Or just focus on blending it altogether. So just play around with this. If you're just starting out, it will take you some practice to get the colors right. So once again, observe the colors on the reference and then try to replicate them and put them on the Canvas in the right order and connect them together. Then when I'm done with the largest section, like this I section here, I'm still going inside and revoking things around. As when a section is completed, you are now able to see more clearly how did colors needs to be balanced? Now, I'm working with the dark zone around the other. I remember the first layer is just a basic color broking. Nothing extra details or complicated. So when you are working in the dark area of the face, you are going to be painting with the dark tone as your main color, then you can go slightly lighter with other Jones. And that's how I created these planes right here. I took a bit of red and orange and mix it all up in the dark one. You need to be on top of your light and dark values all the time when you are working with semitones, you can also use just a bit of the dark tone to go darker or lighter to go lighter when you are working with lights, you shouldn't be using any direct zone only when you are transitioning from semitones too dark, or if you just use it to slightly tin the light tone darker. I hope this makes sense. See now I in the forehead, which contains mostly lights and a few semitones, and it also has this dark value on the right. So I'm observing the tones and creating the colors accordingly. The knowledge of facial planes is highly recommended here as o you are doing is observing how do facial planes are changing color. Forehead now, you can clearly see that it contains bigger blood use of colored so you don't have to bend so many little ones now like we did with the eye for example. You can thank them. Bigger color area and then later on you would break it down into smaller ones. Start very simple. See now, when I go to the edge of the eyebrow, I created a tone in order to blend it together with the glabella. It is slightly reddish. Now I'm carefully trying to less than the eyebrow glabella transition. You have to keep in mind that you need to connect everything together. Every shape on the face. Don't leave your edges sharp on this DR. Now observe the rents on the forehead. I'm doing the same thing now everywhere. Trying to run their according to the red friends, every column together. So let's continue with the red zone by painting a red on the eye. Now just go looking for it and tried to make every area somehow complete. However, always keep in mind then this is just the first layer. We will have plenty of space to correct and build up our benzene in other layers. I'm using the dry brush just very slightly and disappointing. Honestly, if I want to soften the edges a little bit. Now, I'm smoothing out the transition between domes. I did a dark value here on the forehead. Oil painting is really about your references as well. Everyone things differently. I started painting with eyes. However, some day Spain from the forehead or the start doing underpainting, experiment a lot and see what works for you. I will binding is very forgiving process. You can paint over anything and revolt anything. So don't worry if something doesn't look right, you can always fix it in the next layer of paint over it. I'm going to speed up the process a little bit and notice I'm placing the colors next to each other and see how I'm smoothing out the transition between those colors with putting sufficient towns in between. So do right side knows plane is kind of going into semi-tones and it contains some reds. Note is the transition between the nose plane and this plane. Here. Don't be afraid to put stones that day supposed to be. Like didn't know shadow here. I am now taking my time and working on the nose. As I said, really take your time as the nose is high. Also notice the red around the nose is really saturated around the nostrils, for example, because of the subsurface scattering. So here notice how I'm building the colors using the data and the red on there. I was using the lights and the red, as I said, tried to control your lights and darks. Now I'm constantly ongoing bug in reverse. Because as I'm adding more and more color, I have to make sure it all works together. Also, when you start painting, especially the first layer, always make sure that you are taking the biggest color shapes and painting them very simple. Later on you can add up the smaller ones on top of each other to make more detail. So we are still painting in the red zone. Therefore, the head contains, the left side of the head contains mostly light tones and semitones down around the chin lips. Again note the shapes of color and putting them together. Now I am observing the color changes on the plains. Always try to think about the phase as a bunch of shapes connecting to each other. You will then see how each plane carries a different color in different volume. I am using only do rights now to create no days the reds on the chin now really do. Reds are almost everywhere on the face. Now, for me, this is the hardest part. The largest area of the cheek is really dark. So just David and data. And now let's mix it up, don't and slowly build up to connection with the CI. Now, sake only read, then read with light orange. This is how you gradually connect the dark cheat with the light chain. I'm also trying to make a flow in the brushstrokes in here, like a nice long stroke, trying them to have a read them. Now let's connect everything together. Now, as I find any oil veins, I can now see the whole big. Now I'm going back in and trying some bonds everything out and make corrections exedra. Don't try to be 2D delta and don't worry if some areas are imperfect at this point. As I said, this is just the first layer. Dry brush. Just very, very lightly. I don't want to drag paint on the paper. So now I will show you what to do in the next lesson.
7. Reference Painting - First Layer (Neck, Hair, Background): With this facial layer being done, the DMS or spirit became a little bit dirty and you don't want to leave it to dirty, so we will have to change it. So I took my dirty gums or spirit liquid and poured it into a separate jar with a late. Then the next day the dirty bit settled on the bottom and I can now reuse as a clean spirit. I also making new mixture of the Gulf given gums all and finish the neck the same way as we did the face. Note this the first phase layer is very diluted and unpolished. This is very normal as the oil paint had only the pure canvas paper to bind to next layer will be better and more detailed as the oil bank will bind to the first oil layer. What I'm also doing, I tried to approach my painting with sections. For example, I did the first facial layer in a day or two. Then I'm going to finish the first layer by blocking in the hair and the background. Then the first facial layer will be dry. So I could work on the second layer. Really approached systematically us sessions where you have a specific plan to finish a certain area. For example, today your task will be to finish the first facial layer the next day, do the neck, hair and the background. If you have less time, just committed to the first part of the face exedra. Just make up your own system that works for you. Don't jump from during the phase inefficiently. And then you Raj with the hair and then jump on the neck. It might work for some artists, but I like to have a clear plan and had a system in mind. So once again, if we do the first facial layer in day one or day two, then in the second day, we do the hair and the background and the neck for example. Then we had like one whole day for the facial layer to dry. So the next day after you paint the hair and the background, you can work on it and it will be completely dry if you're using fast drying mediums, of course. So you don't have to worry about it being what I hope you understand me. So make sure the neck is a tone dark then the lightest stone, at least as it's kind of placed further away than the head is and it's under it. I'm mostly using the semitone with reds and dark tones here. So now I'm going to mix color for the hair. Keep in mind that the hair is a dark value except for the top part. So you might want to connect it together with the cheek. That is the crucial part in my opinion, not to separate it too much just to make it simpler. So I'm gonna make a similar color like we did on the dark zone, however, it's going to be more brownish. If you look at the dereference, you can see that the dark tone on the hair and the dark tone on her cheeks and neck is not that different. So we are going to keep it similar. My goal is to merge it together with the dark cheek, but to still keep it a bit separate. So I'm going to take a bit of our brown and mix in a bit of blue, not as much as we did for the dark value doe, and a bit of yellow to soften it up, then I'm going to see what it does. It was too brown, so I'm going to add more blue. Now. I'm going to mix in a bit of white to make a lighter value for the top hair. Going to add yellow to it as well. Otherwise it will be too cool and it will disturb the color harmony. By adding white to make a lighter tone, it will always change your color too much and you would always need to balance it out. One of the reason is that every wire it has a different into it. Now I'm making a big yellow wish you for the hair strands that are down. I'm starting to paint the darker values and notice how important it is to section the hair. Just separate it into smaller sections. Don't over-complicate it too much. Use a bigger brush. Hair can be always less detailed, and I think it's better to make them a bit less detailed at first. If you're an experienced, it will look more realistic. Also take a look here how you can see the big shape of the dark value and paint it all in one dark color. Think about shadows in big shapes as well. What is very important is to control the edges. You can see that by painting the hair around the cheeks made the cheap edges really sharp and we don't want that. They are not sharp in reality, if you look at the reference, now I just took a little dry detail, brush and smooth the edges a little bit. I'm continuing to fill out the DAG is stone down staking the yellow to own any thinning out the delight to areas of each section. Now, I only put one big shape for the lightweight value on top of really laying you are starting out just block in beak shapes of color. Then you break it down even further into more detail later. I am continuing to fit in the body on the other side as well. Now as I'm touching the face again, notice how it is under reference. The dark dots are connected here, so I'm putting a bit of the hair on the forehead as well to indicate the shadow. Later, we will paint over it with our dark. Don't don't be afraid of with us. If you didn't blend it in, it would look very separated and unnatural. Again, connect everything together. Reminder about sectioning the hair again, it is really important. See how I separated the hair here and this makes it so much easier for me to paint it as I'm approaching it section by section. Always make sure that you know what you are supposed to do with the hair. You have to sort of design it. Don't have to copy. You can then simplify each section according to your liking. When I first started painting or even drawing the hair, I oftentimes had no plan and therefore, I had no clue what I was doing. And it ended up with me putting hair strands all over the place. These didn't have any structure. It just looked like a 10 year-old would scramble. So I'm using two separate did Now I'm going to mix a blue bug ground. What is good to know that since this is the bug grout, it has to be very desaturated color. As the background is add debug. More color is a debug, the more desaturated it must be. Some don't link the color down with some reds and I'm adding yellow as well. If I wanted saturated blue, then I wouldn't use that much of the other colors. If you mix blue, yellow, and red together in the same amount, you will get brown. So this way we will create these very low chroma blue, and also by adding white, you lessen the chroma of the color as well. Now I'm applying this to do background and notice I'm blending do hair into the above-ground because the sharpest object here is the phase. Then when it gets back to the head, the edges become more and more blurred. You have to create a SAM unsharp effect as you would with the photo camera. Again, it would look unrealistic if it was o sharp and unlearned. See how I'm painting in the hair to create this blurry effect. So don't be afraid to properly blend the hair with the background. Now I'm just painting the shirt white. Again. I never use the pure white. I mixed a bit wide to do background color and that gave me a nice grayish tone for the shirt. I'm using a bit of the dark tone with blue to create more shadow in there. Now, I'm just painting in her coat and trying to merge it in with the hair as well. I just added more blue for the jacket to mix in with the dark tone. Now I decided I'm going to go in with the hair again when it's still wet and make it more detail. So a mix more color for the hair because I didn't have enough. Notice the basic shapes. So for example, the shape of the hair is twisted here. So you will create this kind of twist here. Don't copy the reference, but rather tried to analyze it and see what kind of shapes it creates. If you were to copy it exactly how it is, then you would be painting over to Christmas. I'm hardly focusing on the reference now in creating this basic twisting shape. Again, shapes. So you could beg the section down like this. So plane in light and dark. Think about everything as shapes or Blaine's will make it so much easier for you. Now I'm smoothing out on the edges as well. I'm blending to fly overhead and debug round as well. Notice so I softly connected the hairline into the forehead. I'm not painting strand by strand, only putting a light shade of brown just to attach it. Now, I'm trying to detail it out a little bit more, but not too much. So as we broke down the hair into like bigger blocks of color, now you can actually go in it and break it down into smaller section or smaller blocks of color. Also notice here, I'm only focusing on what I'm trying to make it connected to two phase as there's a big dark value which connects the face and the hair. So I'm trying to make it smooth, not choose separated. I got here a little bit because it appears to be much smaller on the reference. So always compared things and don't be afraid to revoke things as you go. So this is our first rough layer done. Worst part is over. Now we know where to put which color. We have everything structured and set for the second more detailed layer. So once again, after completing the first layer, you should know where to put each color and in general what you are doing on the canvas. The second layer we'll be focusing on smoothing out and putting more detail.
8. Reference Painting - Second Facial Layer: So now I'm going to remix previous stones, mostly the ones that are dried up and use job. Sometimes it can be really difficult to remember how you mix the tones, especially if you're a beginner. So maybe try to write down the colors and approximately how much you use when you start mixing them in the first place. Then just mix them until you much dried color is still on the ballot. Don't worry if you mix it a little bit of just a slight tint of gets lost on the canvas and do portrait can even look more interesting. If you didn't like some color that you already painted the portrait with, you could even mix it differently. Sometimes you realize you had some colors off after you finish the whole first layer of the face. So that is called John, we need to get ready for the next layer. Then, after I assessed the first layer, I now know that another dark dawn would be really helpful in addition to the dark zone that we have as having only one dark don't mix was not enough in my opinion, so I made my job easier by mixing this greenish dark tone. This might be used as a semitone more than a dark tone, actually, just a color which I could see quite regularly on the face but didn't have an unmixed. After you paint for a while, you still have a space to change colors to your liking. Or sometimes you could see how the colors will look like when you're actually done some painting. I have also used too much cool yield rates like this pinkish colors. And I think that the face has much more of a warmer orange in it. So I'm going to make sure I will warm it up by using more orange rather than paying us for the medium. Now you can paint a bit more thicker as we should follow the foot overly rule. Use more paint in the second layer. So I'm going to make sure that I have more Gulf get in the previous mixture then Gonzo, just make sure it's more thicker and the oil paints will get less diluted. And by the time they are going to start painting the second layer of the face now, it should be all dry and ready for us to paint. As I waited about two days for it to dry. I have painted the first layer of the face in one day. Then I did the neck, the hair, and the background in second date. So now we can start painting the face again as it should be already dry. And with our fast drying medium, it would probably be good to pain the next day. So to explain again, when you are painting sections, for example, one day you are working on the first layer of the face. The next day you do do hair and the rest that you don't have to wait days just to get the layers to dry. And you can paint like this every day as you will leave at least a day between each sections to dry as you were not paying them. I hope that makes sense. Over time. You will develop your own system according to your own needs and you will find mediums you are going to prefer using as well. So now I'm going to do the same thing I did with the first layer. However, I'm going to use more paint and focus on details much more. You can also see that the painting surface looks much more covered than before, as this is the second layer. So I'm putting the same colors on top. Plus I'm focusing more on details and also trying to fix on perfect or unknown areas. Or I can also change some colors I don't like or are misplaced. You can also use smaller brushes, especially around the eyes. Can you see I'm lecturing, repairing every aspect of the face and making sure it looks nice, smooth, and clean. Now when we have a second layer, the surface looks much better. Take your time if you get diarrhea, just have a break at sea or something and come back to it later. If you want to continue working on it the next day, that is also fine. Just don't rush it. So now I'm going to speed up the process. Feel free to watch me how making the second layer more details. And added. Oil painting is very forgiving process. You can keep changing things and just add more color exedra. I am smoothing out the DNS to make it smoother and more. Row says, you just have to play around until you are satisfied with the results. Okay, so now I'm going to do a little twist. This is optional. You don't have to know these greenish bluish color on the skin, which has a potential for making a portrait interesting. So I'm going to take this completely new color out of our original color set, radiant green and mix it in. The portrait's. Just a little bit though nothing crazy. I'm just going to mix it in with the white here and then the highlight like this with it. It gave the face even more realistic look and it made it more interesting. It's gonna look good on the light side here, no more than a little bit. Otherwise it would get too chaotic as this car is too bright for our palette. So I'm going to put them on the right side of the face. I'm just trying to until I'm happy with it. This is a common process in our paintings. Sometimes you just have to take your best, well in order to make something to your liking and trust yourself that you will eventually achieve it how you want it. Don't be afraid to look at your painting when you're not painting and think about what looks off and what needs to be repainted. That is very important as if something feels off, it usually is. So trying to bait as best as you possibly can. Going back and forth from section in order to smooth them out and correct imperfections. You can see in this painting over here, I wasn't sure about lightning until I was more satisfied. Also, the shadow is a dagger values and tries to stick together. I also know that the right side of it was a bit smaller, so I made it. The dark shadow of the cheek here is nicely connected to the dark shadow of the neck. So taken advantage of Dell big dark shape and painted sort of together. Again. You can then think a little reflected light on the chin to make it look separate. So if you see the shadows are shapes, you could make your paintings so much easier. Take a look at the reference again and find all these shadow shapes you can render. Think about them in a bigger form first and you can deter them out and break them out into smaller shapes later on. When painting the right cheek here, there is a lot of going on, so I'm taking my time and slowly trying to make it work. Don't be afraid to paint over and then fixing it again. Once you overpaying one layer, it becomes too wet and hard to fix. So if you experience difficulties painting and debate the scrubbing of the surface exedra, just leave it for the day and let it dry. You will have better chances with fixing it when it's dry. I'm now adding even more shadow to the forehead year as there wasn't enough before. So as you can see, the right t belongs to the shadow side of your face to try to keep it that way. The shadow goes all the way to delay even the area between the lips and the right shadow on the cheek. Now, I'm not trying to do completely highly detailed as it's not the main focus of our subject here. And then we forgiven. Also just to remind there, make sure the light, or in general just painted a little bit darker. After finishing painting does sake and facial layer. I'm going back and seeing what still needs to be fixed and then fixing it when it's still wet. I usually go over the lightest tones and make them even lightsaber because somehow they get lost in the blending. So I make sure I enhance them even more. See how the shadows, for example, making the darkest shadows darker and lighter to make sure there's appropriate contrast and distinction between them. I am also carefully painting the reflected light that is at the bottom of the nose here. It is the thin line. I really like to have it exaggerated and visible. However, keep in mind that the reflected light is supposed to be darker than the darkest light, as it's still part of the shadow group. But you can clearly see that without painting the reflected light on the nose, you would not have any distinction between the nose and the shadow. And it would all merge in. And by painting the reflected light just a little line will nicely distinguished this. Now, I'm finishing painting the second layer of the face. I'm quite satisfied with it at this point, however, it is not finished at all. I will still need to work on it later on. However, the main part is more or less done. I would say. Then as we move on to the hair, we will let the second facial layer dry so we can work on the details later on. I think I finished the second facial layer in a day or two. So by the time I'm going to move on to work on the hair, the hair layer is going to be dry.
9. Reference Painting - Second Layer (Hair and Background): So I'm going to mix to paint for the hair. I'm happy with the previous color as it looks realistic. I might just use a little bit more blue to kind of get it closer to the dark value of the face to balance it out. So I'm literally gonna do the same as I did in the first layer, but now I'm going to focus on smoothing out and detailing things out. Noticed again, Tom painting despite our shape here and not copying the reference. So now I'm going to mix again background-color and main.out on top of the previous layer, then I'm going to blur out the hair to debug ground and also some trends into new mixture S, it will create this blurry effect. I'm also focusing on painting some long detailed hair strands. Also note days on many shoe ran the doubt, many details, but it still looks realistic. And that should also be a goal. Rather than using hair super realistically, just think about them as a set of values and shapes. Also, what is really important is to focus on the shadows on the face. I need to sanction to it. And mangoes as well. I know some of these make mistakes, including me for some time before they just neglect dose and then it looks really on reality stake and completely separate from the face. Subhead. Note this that the hair is literally a set of dark spots and white spots. It usually has sections separated with dark values. Also remember, as we paint it, very, very simple sections of hair before. Now you are just going in and separating in further and further with this dark tones. Also, I'm still using a bigger brush when painting the hair. And I would avoid using the detailed brush unless you are actually painting little hair strands. You will save so much time and also look much more realistic. The dark value in the hair here. What I'm doing is taking just a bit of why the tones and learning them out inside of the dark value part of hair, don't pay too much attention to them as it must be clear what is on the dark value side and what is on the light side. So don't make them too bright, otherwise it will destroy the light and dark harmony. Now I'm doing the same thing with the background and blurring the hair into it. Just swing the brush a little to create this beautiful and elegant brush strokes or fly overhead. It's usually just one simple movement. The longer you are painting the hair strands, the more your handle shape and divorce it will look, trust me. Yeah. And the hair is done mostly.
10. Reference Painting - Reworking and Smoothing Out Pt1: Now Lehman just remixed the colors we need for the face again, as we aren't going to work on it some more now, the layer is dry now because I let it dry one day as I was painting the hair and the background day. So now it's all about the details. When we finished the second layer are portraits, field looks somehow company. Now the canvas is covered with two layers and that should set you for revolting and smoothing things out. You don't need to cover the whole canvas once more, but only the areas which needs work, the amount of layers is really individually. Some artists paint really thick and require just one layer. Some of them have even five and more. It also depends on the painting surface. Some require more layers, some less. This is just an example of how I do things when I'm working on more complex paintings are usually played in much more layers than this portrait right here. This section needs work and work on a face a little bit more. I'm working with a smaller brush mostly now is I don't need to find the largest sections. So I'm enhancing again by mixing it with the light color. Once again, I put them on the left side of the face. I'm enhancing this area between the nose and your lip on the left side with the green tone now. And then I'm going to do the same on the left side of the chin. So when you are working mostly on the details now, really have fun with it. Notice I'm constantly repainting and changing things around. You have so much space in oil painting to do this if doing this until you're satisfied with the result. So when we paint in the dark values, notice that there is a slight reflected light that separates the nose from its shadow, the ellipse from its shadow, and also the chin from the shadow on the neck. Just a light one and it makes a huge difference with the shapes. Don't be afraid to take your time. Make sure everything on the face is on point and don't be afraid to change things around. Repainting exedra. The transition between the dark one is very hard, especially with the redness of the cheeks. So I'm not really afraid to change things around until I reach my satisfaction. Now I'm smoothing down the forehead. Forehead is my favorite. Many things happening. I'm constantly changing things around as you can see. Now, when you are getting to the end, you can start paying more attention to highlight. So you need to also note that you have to layer two highlights as well. So that's why they are at the end. Now, I already have a lot of highlight on the lip, so I'm going to add even lighter ones on top. If you didn't lay your damn it wouldn't be like a kick in the stomach tube right. Now, I'm taking a dark color and dark areas of the face, the eye lines, the nostrils and the line between the lips. So just like you need to build up your highlights, you also need to build up your dark tones. So this is the reflected London will separate the chain from the neck. Otherwise it would be just one big. I will play around and making very soft as a parent. Now everything is all about the sectioning. I decided to do one more layer on the data. Now it's down to just a little bit. So I'm just adding small hair into the sections. The section, it's even more. So you would build up the hair from the biggest sections into the smallest sections. You have one big section which you divide into smaller sections and smaller sections. So you divide into even smaller section. Just repeating once again, because this is very important. I am still working on them dark cheek now. Also notice that those areas are still supposed to be dark. Found the annual lighted and above semi-tones. The same applies for the reflection lines because they are part of the shadow family. You have to make sure that you don't lose your sense of values. That's why I clearly need to have your values where you mixed on the balance constantly, constantly side. So I will see you on the second part of this lesson.
11. Reference Painting - Reworking and Smoothing Out Pt2: Now the move to know lashes. So when you find the luscious, treat them as hair. Use a very small movement on the like one or two, make them triangular shaped and section. Then each section should look like a triangle. Start with a lighter tone and build them up as well. Remember that the lashes go over the upper eyelid as well from the bottom. The lower lashes are usually much lighter than the upper ones. If you think the lashes are too dark, you can drop them a little bit. A tissue or a cotton bud. Once again, start up by layers. Take your time. Don't. Now I need two bonds out of the darkness under nostrils, so we don't have the eyes to very carefully. I'm also a layering the darkness on the lashes carefully building up the layers as the worst thing is to have lashes like grass or some. Now I'm going into the Rouse and dark and dim up a little bit and balancing out the rest of the data values c. So you need to constantly make sure everything is balanced by focusing on the lashes. They stood out too much. So I had to make sure all of the darkest areas on the face where US dark. You need to carefully layer the eyebrows as well, build it up as you would everything. I see that some artists paying the browse to the right from the beginning, they don't start softly. And then again, it looks like a gig in the stomach. Don't focus on the Browse, but focus on the shape that it lays on. They lay on top of the isoquant. So maybe studied a school so you know where to place the lights. Exedra. Hi, I'm also darkening up the darkest shadows to balance things out. So now I'm making a beautiful highlights just with the background color and painting highlight. Don't use two lights. Jones us. It wouldn't look natural. Now I'm going put a water lines as well. The lips as you notice, this is already like third layer of highlights. Now the job of the islands. Now still working with extra detail brush working on the lights in general. So still working on the highest details. So this stage of detailing can be really fun. You get up into the iris as well. I love highlights, it makes my subjects reading. You don't have to go into that much detail. It's up to you. That is the most fun part in my opinion. Now I'm detailing and highlighting the hair. So adding light strands into the dark areas are some hair fly over everywhere. But it wouldn't have to be done. I could have left the hair just like it is. And if you have a good foundation, and that's what matters. But I like to play with the details a little as well. So I'm also highlighting the hair here. I am also enhancing the shadow on her shirt. I didn't pay that much attention to her shirt. It's not very important in this case. Again, you don't need to do that, but it's up to you. Look at how the little hair strands look really nice, but leave them completely to the end. I didn't even copy down from the reference. I just observe a day approximately. And so when you get to the end of her painting, just play around with it, put some little hairs trends. New stage is really fun. I think I reach a point where I feel really satisfied with this portrait. If you want me, please don't be sad and just brought these. I'm sure you will get better soon. Don't hesitate and share your results with me and everyone else. I'm sure it turned out even better than you thought.
12. Varnishing: I left the portrait drive for about three to four weeks. It is touched dry. Now, when you are using this product called gamba varnish, you could begin varnishing when your portrait is touched dry. My paintings get dry in about a week because of the fast drying medium. And I also paint very thinly. Some artists needs to wait months. They could varnish there painting. However, this is not my case. It really depends on the artist techniques and mediums. The other thing you'll need is a large brush. Mine is quite small. Vigor would be better. There are special varnishing brushes on the market right now. So you might want to do your research. I just use my old brush and it worked just fine since I'm paint in smaller scales anyway. And important thing to do is make sure you don't have any dust on your brush or your painting. So dusted all of the varnish is like a dust magnets. So really make sure there are no dust particles anywhere. So or a little on your canvas and start varnishing like this. Don't overpay for us too much varnish can cause your painting to be two glossy and sticky. You can even or a little in a dish and then just take it out with your brush if you're not sure. So I poured rather analytical part and then I pour more when I need it. Make sure the varnish is evenly distributed. You also want to put something underneath the painting you are varnishing. You don't want to destroy table. I'm using an old drawing Woodward. Then check if any little dust could incite. This can still happen because the varnish is a sticky medium and dust particles are floating everywhere. So take a little cotton bud and carefully remove any unwanted dust. So I decided I'm going to do only one layer of varnishing since the painting is only on canvas paper and I didn't use many layers. However, you could let this dry for a day or so and those second varnishing layer for extra protection, It's up to you if you have an archival painting, this step is highly recommended. And when done, make sure you leave a sufficient time for the varnish to dry. I usually leave it overnight or for a couple of hours.
13. Conclusion: I hope that this course helped you and nato painting fun for you. Please know that there is no right technique that works for everyone. Just start painting and tried to approach it with as little fear as possible. When I first started, I was intimidated with oils. However, I have completely fallen in love with them and can take my hands of them to this day. Sometimes it's best to ask yourself, how would you paint? It's not how would other Spain's it take what you need for where you need, but always stay true to yourself. Thank you and happy painting.
Helena Artbook, Artist and Illustrator
