It’s one of the hardest parts of the face to get right, but it is so important. Teeth are not easy to paint, because of the very subtle shapes, shades of color, and nuances you have to capture correctly to convey a convincing reality of a beautiful smile.
Today, I’m going to show you how to paint realistic teeth using my Old Master’s glazing technique.
This is just a small bonus portion of my 30+hours step-by-step video course (including the bonus footage), “Paint Your First Amazing Acrylic Portrait.”
Now, here is how to do it. You’ll need:
Hope you enjoyed this post, and have a blessed day,
P.S. Did you find this post helpful or encouraging? If so, send it on ahead! Let others know with the share buttons below. I’d love to hear your comments. Thank you so much! Also, do you have a question on acrylic portrait painting you’d like answered? Let me know, and I’d be happy to help!
This was to be given as a gift from the mother to her son and his fiance as a unique wedding gift. The idea was to incorporate a large image of them, a picture of them with their dog, and then a scripture verse in the background, that would go with the marriage theme.
Here’s how I did it.
After getting my photos together from the client, I did a layout.
This was before I started using the grid method, so I sketched it with a projector and pencil, following the outlines of the photographs closely. The projector sometimes gets things wrong, so you have to go back, double-check your lines and refine accordingly.
The purpose of this step is to quickly establish the tonality of the portrait by getting the colors in the right place. Secondarily, I want to set up my values, by creating immediate contrast between light and dark. I start attacking the darkest values first, using cooler colors like ultramarine blue, raw umber dark and dioxazine purple to create a rich, nuanced black.
This way, when it’s all done, and the viewer takes a close look at the painting, it won’t be flat. You will be able to sense the folds of fabric, and contours around the body of the person within.
My goal is always to create a painting that has immediate impact, but also rewards the viewer for taking a closer look.
For the subjects, I use raw umber dark for the darker values within the hair, raw sienna for the lighter values, and burnt sienna, raw sienna, raw umber dark, and alizarine crimson for the skin tones.
Of course, as with virtually all my painting, the pigment is mixed with a generous portion of matte medium to thin it out, and create the translucent depth that’s similar to the Old Master’s techniques.
Notice how for the trees and background I use a light green, made up of phthalo green, raw sienna, and a little indian yellow. It will give it a lot of luminosity as the light shines through the layers.
Now that I have the foundation, I go back and add several layers to all the areas within the painting. But mostly, I want to bring the darkest values to about 80% of their full strength. This will give me something to work with as I move the other values in the picture in accord.
I could just go and use full strength pigment, but it gives the painting a nicer finish to darken everything slowly. In addition to that, it gives me the ability to precisely blend even within the dark areas.
Is a black shirt just straight black?
No.
Not when there’s light shining on it. We don’t want to use straight black. Otherwise how can you paint the shadows in representing the beginning and end of arms, chest, waist, and all the appropriate wrinkles within the fabric? Instead we get it dark enough and leave room for the shadows.
And by the way, ivory black is not the darkest color you can get. You’ll get an even deeper black with dioxazine purple, aliazarine crimson, phthalo blue and raw umber dark mixed together.
Why not just settle for black? Well, it’s the same reason why HDTVs boast of having higher contrast. I used to sell LCD TVs years ago when they first came out on the market. They were terrible. The darkest values on the screen were just grey. Therefore the lightest values were not very impressive, and so the whole picture looked weak.
With a painting, you will get a way more dramatic effect if you can use really dark values to set of your lighter areas by contrast. It just reminds me of the way the darkness of sin makes the righteousness of God through Jesus Christ that much more glorious. You have to have some darkness to set off the light. Enough said.
At this point here, it’s time to turn my attention to the most important part of the portrait: the people. And especially their faces. In the previous step, I blocked in the darkest shadows within their faces, but now, I want to add some tie-in values. Those are the tones that bridge the gap between the lightest and darkest values.
So I keep the ones I put down as a good foundation. But now, I’m adding more on top, glazing over translucently, so the bottom layers still remain. That’s how we do this with acrylic–with layers.
I feel like their features–the important ones–like the eyes, eyebrows, nose, and mouth need some work. So I begin to darken them, adding detail wherever it needs it.
It’s good to remember the old adage, “Rome wasn’t built in day.” You have see the big picture and slowly comform your painting to the reference photos. Patience is key. For example, I darken the eyebrows as one solid mass of color–just one shade, but I know after this layer dries, I’ll come back to it again–and again, if need be. Then I will go in and darken just a portion of the eyebrow, while leaving the other part with whatever I did in the previous layer.
By doing this, I can suggest that the eyebrow hairs are thicker in a certain area, or the eye sockets are creating a shadow over that portion. That’s all you have to do. You don’t have to get crazy with drawing each individual hair. That actually detracts from your realism. Just hint at it and let the viewer’s mind’s eye interpret the rest and create the reality for you.
In this step, I keep on adding layers to the faces: more layers of alizarine crimson, raw sienna, and some titanium white. Using a average size flat brush (3/8 or smaller) I keep adding nuances to the faces. When I start a portrait I use my largest brushes: typically 1″ or even larger. But as I get toward the end of the project I switch to smaller.
Why?
The smaller brush is good not only for detail work, but also those precise areas of nuances–the subtle transition of shading from the cheek to the area below the eye socket. Or the fleshy area under the chin and neck where the light is reflecting from another illuminated surface.
In this portrait, that is happening: we have the woman’s illuminated chest area reflecting as a secondary light source onto her chin. And so with that, I have to make sure I don’t paint the shadow underneath too dark. Since both the man and woman are outside, it makes sense that the light will really illuminate them well and the shadows won’t get very dark, except on the darker clothing and hair.
Another area I want to touch on is the Bible, which shows the scripture verse. That’s important part of the painting. I chose to just suggest the text by creating random out-of-focus lines. But the actual verse, “Love never fails” from the famous Corinthians 13 passage, is clearly in focus.
To paint something this detailed on canvas, you have to really make sure you have a nice detail brush, like 1/0 or smaller round, twisted to a point, with very fluid paint. Mist your palette and make sure the paint is about as thin as it can go before getting watery, and it will glide right over the canvas.
It makes painting text a whole lot easier.
Finally, I went over the greenery of the background trees and grass, just adding more nuances. I used phthalo blue, ultramarine blue, and raw sienna for the darker shades. Once you have your initial light green set up, it really sets it off beautifully.
In addition, I painted the dog’s eyes, using brown tones to give it some contrast. I still left the areas representing reflections quite light.
The portrait, at this stage, is starting to look done, but there’s still a lot of work to do. One of the things that can really enhance the realism is using highlights. Although I do like to leave a lot of areas of the canvas untouched for creating my lighter values, it is nice to go back in with some opaque highlights for certain areas.
I feel it gives me the best of both worlds: Glazing is fantastic for building depth and achieving fine gradations in shading, but it creates a roughness that must be overcome with some opaque layers. The trick is to use them just in a few areas.
The hair is one example. Here, I go back in and add just a little titanium white toned down with raw sienna to add the look of diffused light reflecting just at the top of the woman’s silky smooth, straight hair. I also go in and add some slightly darker highlights to the man’s textured short haircut. I already have the base color and value down. Now as I add these highlights, it will quickly change add depth to that area.
Also, I add detail to their teeth. We want to make sure that we don’t overdo it though. We want to use just enough of a light amber grey to suggest that there is separation between them. Raw umber dark mixed with titanium white and thinned by matte medium) is a fantastic way to create shadows for the teeth–in the right value and color.
Once I have the teeth darkened slightly, I can add even more depth by going over with a pin-point highlight of pure titanium white. With this, we just suggest reflections of light over the moist teeth. After it dries, add a tiny glaze of indian yellow, thinned with medium and it will give that white a bit more warmth and luminosity.
You can also do this on the gums. For some people, depending on the structure of their mouth, and the lighting, the gums will catch more of those highlights than the teeth. That was the case for this portrait.
Because this is a collage–or montage–portrait, there’s a lot different elements that need attention. So just when you think you are done, there’s just a little more.
Now, it’s time to add in some more detail to this couple’s background portrait. I noticed that the woman appeared to be looking away from the camera, but by adding just a few darker spots within her eyes on the right side, we suggest that she is looking toward us. It’s just a small amount of work, but it pays dividends in creating that visual connection with the viewer.
It’s time to add the long blades of grass in. I already have the base tones in. It’s just a matter of putting in some darker shadows in angular shapes, and then going over with highlights. Phthalo blue, ultramarine blue, raw sienna, even some yellow ochre and titanium white is what’s used, from darkest to lightest in capturing the effect.
Moving to the left of that, I tackle the jeans for both the man and woman, using the same two blues on my palette. I tend to use ultramarine blue for the darker values and phthalo blue for the lighter. For the darkest shadows I add in some diox purple and raw umber dark so it doesn’t get too bluish.
With some more nuances here and there, I can call the painting done!
Here are a couple detail shots…
I hope you enjoyed this post and found it valuable. If you have any questions on the techniques used to create this portrait, I would love to help.
Have a blessed day,
P.S. Did you find this post helpful or encouraging? If so, send it on ahead! Let others know with the share buttons below. I’d love to hear your comments. Thank you so much! Also, do you have a question on acrylic portrait painting you’d like answered? Let me know, and I’d be happy to help!
After following the videos two aspects I struggle with
The fine detail … I used a 0 and 1 round paintbrush but still I paint above the indentations in the canvas.
Dark colours create a matrix pattern
i.e. paint on top of indentation nothing in the holes
So fine work is a struggle.
Just wondering if I need to push the paint into the canvas as opposed to brushing?
These are some excellent questions, and they get right into the heart of the acrylic glazing technique. I may need to touch on this more in future video lessons. You do need to push the paint in–actually “scrub” the paint into the texture of the canvas. Here’s how to do it, using a flat brush:
First, get a good amount of paint on the edge of your brush, almost “scooping” it from the pile of your mixture onto the edge of the bristles.
Next, “scrub” the paint into the texture of the canvas, pushing the paint in the grooves with edge of the brush more perpendicular to the surface of the canvas, rather than parallel. You can see I’m using quite a bit of pressure to get the paint into the little holes of the canvas weave.
Then, spread the paint out.
After that, even it out with long strokes, applying lighter pressure. First use diagonal. Then go over with vertical.
Finally, go over the entire area again with diagonal strokes. You may need to criss-cross them to get an even blend. Use even lighter pressure for this. The trick is to just glide over the surface without digging in too far.
This is how it should look when you’re done.
After this layer dries, you can apply more layers, and change the direction of the diagonal strokes to get an even smoother look.
For a small round brush, you can’t scrub or push the paint in. That would ruin your brush or at the very least, lessen your ability to paint precise detail. With that, what you need to do is thin the paint down with a mist of water from your spray bottle and make sure you’re using fresh matte medium in your mix. By keeping the paint fluid it will go into the grooves of the canvas.
However, the glazing technique works even better on a flat surface like hardboard. I love the traditional look of canvas, but sometimes I get tired of fighting the texture and get out a smooth board to work on–especially for smaller paintings.
Let me know how this helps!
Be blessed,
P.S. Did you find this post helpful or encouraging? If so, send it on ahead! Let others know with the share buttons below. I’d love to hear your comments. Thank you so much! Also, do you have a question on acrylic portrait painting you’d like answered? Let me know, and I’d be happy to help!
Would we talk about girls and shoot hoops? Or maybe play guitar? (that’s more up my alley)
I had a client who brought that idea to life. It was his idea, actually that he wanted me to paint–a massive 48″ x 72″ realistic acrylic portrait–in black and white– of he and his wife as they looked in their 20’s, along with their two children, who are currently in their 20’s, all hanging out in the same time and place. In the background is New York City, where they were originally from, merging into Minneapolis, which is close to where they and their kids now live.
After meeting together, I got to work putting together a layout of what the painting would look like when finished. It always helps to have a good-looking family to do your painting from! My client kind of reminds me of Scott Baio or Tony Danza in these photos.
During the layout and approval process, I also worked on building the canvas. I started with professional stretcher bars made in the USA, complete with locking mitre joints and beveled edges, and assembled them. It is extremely important to have a strong support for a 4″ x 6″ canvas, to be able to withstand the tension of the stretched fabric, and to keep from warping. I made sure to include cross braces and diagonal braces as well.
Next, I stretched the canvas with pliers and stapled it extremely carefully, measuring every mark to ensure even tension. Just this process alone took several hours.
Finally, the stretched canvas! I apply hot water with a brush to add just a bit more tension and get out any wrinkles. If you tap it, it sounds like a drum!
The next step was to gesso (prime) the canvas. I use a high quality gesso, which is white acrylic paint plus ground pumice to make it sandable. I used three or four coats to get a really smooth and durable surface.
With a blank canvas to work with, I feel good.
It doesn’t feel daunting. It’s like a clean slate, ready to add something beautiful and intricate to. It makes me think of what God does in our lives when He forgives our sins through Jesus Christ, and then we are clean, perfect, and ready for Him to work with us to create a masterpiece!
It was around the beginning of March when I started painting. My client and his family approved the layout after a few changes, and so I was ready to go! I decided to skip the pencil sketch, and get into the painting process right away.
Many people ask me how I do the sketching process. It depends on the project. Most often for small portraits, I freehand sketch them. For a large scale and incredibly detailed project like this on a canvas, I will either grid or project the design with an overhead transparency projector. Canvas is very difficult to sketch on with a pencil. In this case, I projected the design I created in Photoshop, using a small brush and a grey paint to quickly capture the lines of the image.
The portrait took nearly 200 hours to complete, from the time taken to build the sizable canvas stretcher frame to the last dab of paint.
Although it is easier to do a painting this way than full-blown color, it presented a few difficulties that I didn’t foresee, at least to the extent that surfaced in this work.
You would think that to do a black and white painting that you would simply just use black and white paint and mix various amounts to arrive at the grey tones in between.
It didn’t work that way for me.
I typically paint with a translucent glazing technique that allows light to reflect through the canvas and back to your eye through the layers of paint, like the Old Masters, giving the final painting a vibrance that is hard to capture with opaque paint alone.
So, when you mix black with the clear acrylic medium, even mixed with some white, and apply it to the canvas, the resulting color is not slate grey, but a brownish grey, because the light shining through the canvas warms up the color.
Then, when certain areas become more opaque than others, the predominance of white mixed in with layers gives the grey shade a cooler, bluish cast.
Maybe I’m just picky, but I don’t want certain areas of the painting to look brown or blue (at least without my say so) when I’m shooting for black and white. If the client commissions a black and white painting, that’s what he expects to get.
The solution?
I included brown (raw umber dark), yellow (raw sienna and indian yellow), and blue (ultramarine blue) on my palette and mixed it back into the colors to correct anything that was off. If the shade was too cool, I warmed it up with brown and yellow. If it was too warm, I cooled it down with blue.
So even in a monochromatic painting, I still end up using color!
But that’s OK, because color is fun to use. 🙂
Now I did make the background just a bit cooler in tone, so that it would visually recede. But it’s nice to be able to do that, when you, the artist chooses to, not just letting the paint do whatever it wants to.
Next, I painted a glaze over the entire painting, to give me a mid-value grey tone to work from. I add in darker values and highlights, working my way across from left to right. I try to develop the painting as a whole and not get too hung up in any one area.
It took over fifty hours to paint the background. I thought I was making it too dark, and had to constantly remind myself that the subjects, the people in the front would be much darker, with areas of pure black paint, and make the background look lighter by comparison. I wanted to “fix the background” and try to lighten it up, but I kept telling myself, “just wait until you paint the people.”
After finishing up the background, I really honed in on the people in the foreground. Here are some photos of me working taken by a talented photographer, Tom Gardner, at Artisan Forge Studios, where I used to work. At this stage I am nearly finished with the portrait. Yes, I can see the finish line from here!
How often in our lives do we judge something or someone prematurely? We ought to reserve judgment on many things in our lives, and especially in others’ lives, believing the best, and wait until everything shakes out. God has a purpose and a plan that we don’t always see. Things can look horribly wrong, when God is creating something wonderful behind the scenes.
When I finally finished it, hours upon hours later, I was satisfied with the results.
Here is a closeup of the father when he was young…
And then the mother…
The daughter…
And the son…
Here is a detail of New York City, with the Brooklyn Bridge in the background.
On the right side of the painting is Minneapolis, with that recognizable round tower…
The best part of the entire project was to deliver it to the client and later to see it hanging in his home. What a conversation piece!
Hope you enjoyed this post and have a blessed day,
P.S. Did you find this post helpful or encouraging? If so, send it on ahead! Let others know with the share buttons below. I’d love to hear your comments. Thank you so much!
His name was Verlyn. He used to come by my house and he’d have his station wagon full of bread, bakery items and other things that he gave to people in the neighborhood as a ministry.
We developed a nice friendship along the way. His wife was ailing at the time and then sadly passed away. I did this portrait for him last year to help encourage him in his time of loss. He is still going strong, even in his 80’s and after everything, he’s taking care of a disabled man!
Here is the reference photo. I took the liberty to lighten up the background and change it to a more neutral color. Also, I brought the two of them a bit closer together, so I could give the portrait an aesthetically pleasing vertical orientation.
And now for the step-by-step process…
This was done freehand. In this stage, I try to get it as accurate as possible, so I have a good foundation to build my painting upon. But there are inevitably a few things that may be off, that have to be addressed in the painting stage. And that’s OK, because with paint it is easy to make corrections. Usually, I sketch in colored pencil, but I think, looking back, I might have run out of them and so used a graphite pencil, even though it is harder to work with.
In this stage, I start by adding some light layers of color: ultramarine blue mixed with raw umber dark, and a alizarine crimson. I like to start my paintings with just one or two different colors and then build from that. So, even though he has pink hair for now, I’m not going to worry about it! The goal is to quickly separate cool hues from warm, and get the values blocked in quickly to build up depth.
Meanwhile, I keep darkening the background with a mixture of raw umber dark and ultramarine blue to make grey. All of these layers, by the way, are thinned down with matte medium and applied with the glazing technique to give the painting richness and depth.
Would you like to learn how to do this technique? Get my free video lessons below…
Learn How to Paint Acrylic Portraits With My Free Mini-Video Course!
At this level, the colors are getting very intense, but there’s still a lot of nuances to add yet, to smooth out the major shaded areas of the face. It’s important to remember that your sketch can’t capture a likeness as precisely as a full-shaded in portrait. The subtleties of values sculpt the dimensions of the face.
So when you’re sketching, cut yourself a little slack if you haven’t captured the likeness perfectly. Just get it close.
It’s starting to look closer, but there’s more details work to be done. As you can tell, the pin on the woman’s lapel can be seen, faintly under the glazes. It’s time to paint it in. And there’s more work to do on the man’s tie–shadows on the edges that will give it depth and make it look like it’s really there, resting on his shirt.
I feel like I’m in the home stretch at this stage, where I could call this finished, but there’s just a few final details yet: The details on the woman’s necklace, the tie-in values (where you take sharply defined shadows and merge them into smooth gradations) on the man’s tie. Highlights on the faces. And even just a few spots on his forehead to give him some character.
Done! All in all, this painting has dozens of layers of translucent paint and over 25 hours of work put into it. It was worth every minute. My friend really appreciated it, and it brought a lot of encouragement as it helped to keep this memory alive.
Let me know what you think of this mini-tutorial, and how I can improve these for you in the future. Share your paintings with me anytime and let me know how I can help you become a better artist.
Be blessed in your painting,
P.S. Did you find this post helpful or encouraging? If so, send it on ahead! Let others know with the share buttons below. I’d love to hear your comments. Thank you so much!
It will be used for a book cover illustration of Charles Spurgeon’s Devotionals for children. Below I want to do a recap of my previous posts from Facebook and Steemit, showing you the process of how I did this painting.
I start off very faint, just blocking in the colors with glazes. I mix about 90% clear acrylic medium to about 10% paint and just block in the composition, suggesting where the future colors will go. Here is my palette…
Normally, I use burnt sienna, but to challenge myself and also to enhance the color harmony within the painting, I omitted it.
The first layers consisted of raw sienna, yellow ochre, phthalo blue and indian yellow for the background, and then for the posts: raw umber dark, ultramarine blue and napthol crimson. I blocked in the blue jeans with phthalo blue, and my daughter’s pants with napthol crimson.
In this step, I added some phthalo blue, raw sienna and yellow ochre in a glaze to the background to suggest trees, and went over the trees with some raw umber dark, napthol crimson and ultramarine blue.
In this step, I added in more layers of green to the background, and filled in the colors for both kids’ pants. I also added in some shadows as well below the fence posts and filled in the shadows a little deeper and more dramatically.
I added some more detail to the background and shading to the children, especially my daughter’s hair. Overall, since I use the glazing technique, I incrementally darken the entire surface, bringing out more details and nuances by “pushing and pulling” the paint: darkening certain areas and lightening others.
With the winter weather we’ve been having in Wisconsin, a walk on a warm day like this picture looks pretty good.
I’m almost done with this painting: I added some contrast to the posts, more nuances within the clothing, some fallen leaves, and some darker areas within the trees in the background to tie the values in with the posts. Still not quite there yet.
I’ll need to substantially darken the overall value of the background to match the much darker and more vivid foreground. Sometimes creating art can be a balancing act. But it’s much safer than being on the high beam!
In the final rendition, I darkened the values in the background, to tie them in with the very dark posts of the fence, and even the shadows on the children. I also added a few details to the children’s hair, and highlights to edges of the clothing to make them stand out more. Lastly, I put a few more glazes of raw umber dark, ultramarine blue, and titanium white for the trees.
This painting took about 20 hours to do. It was my pleasure going on this journey with you, showing the process, and maybe even help you to think about warmer weather at a time when many of us are ready for spring!
Be blessed in your painting,
P.S. Did you find this post helpful or encouraging? If so, send it on ahead! Let others know with the share buttons below. I’d love to hear your comments. Thank you so much!
My pastor served for a very long time at my church, over 40 years, and almost 70 years in ministry. He asked me to do a portrait of he and his wife. I’m going to show you how I did it.
This was a 25″ x 31,” acrylic on linen. I stretched this canvas and primed it myself with about three coats of gesso to make sure it was an extra smooth surface.
For the sketch, I used a dark pastel pencil and drew in almost every contour of the faces. Even the detail in the dress of my pastor’s wife wife was meticulously reproduced from the reference photo.
Having a detailed, accurate sketch is an excellent foundation to apply the layers of paint to, just like a construction company needs to lay down solid cement to build a home on.
I didn’t want to leave anything out.
During the consultation with the clients, my pastor’s wife said, “Don’t paint any wrinkles on me. But you can paint them on Pastor, though.”
I laughed.
I guess that’s the beauty of hiring an artist to paint your picture instead of relying on the harsh, unforgiving camera lens.
She didn’t have too many wrinkles to edit out, anyway. 🙂
Once the sketch was finished, I sealed it in with matte medium. You never should use a spray fixative to seal in a fine art painting sketch. You could end up having problems with the paint adhering to the surface. Instead, do it the old fashioned way, with clear acrylic medium and a brush.
This is probably the second-most fun stage of painting. (The absolute most fun stage is finishing and signing!) I love to set the stage for the entire look of the picture by quickly blocking in the values–that is, the light and dark areas that create contrast, visual interest and realism.
To do that, I used raw umber dark mixed at a ratio of 90% medium to 10% paint. I filled in the hair and the suit right away, and also the background. To differentiate between the foreground and background, I used more layers on the people. Alternating between the raw umber dark, I also used phthalo blue, alizarine crimson, and dioxazine purple.
Did you know that dioxazine purple is darker than black?
I wanted to make sure the black areas were very dark. That makes the lighter values pop even more, giving the whole painting a greater visual impact.
In this step, I build up three dimensional form by utilizing 5 different blending techniques:
1. Segmented Glazing. Creating gradations by using several layers and intentionally placing more layers upon areas that are darker in value, and less upon those that should be lighter. Generally, I use this method in the first stages of the painting, when very smooth gradations are not necessary, and I’m just building up the values.
2. Dilution Glazing. Creating gradations by applying a glaze over a section, and then dipping your brush into pure matte medium (which is clear) and blending it into the edge of the section of glaze, thus thinning it out gradually and creating a smooth transition in the process.
3. Dry Brushing. You apply the paint normally at first, but then when the supply of paint on your brush is almost exhausted, you “feather” out the remainder, and get a transition from dark to light.
4. Dabbing. This is unorthodox, but it works for me. I also blend with my finger. If my glaze was a bit too strong in an area, I smooth and lift up some of the pigment with my fingers, and wipe the excess on a towel. No worries, because acrylic is non-toxic!
5. Wet-on-Wet. This would typically be done with a more opaque layer, but the layer could still be 50% translucent. Think of a sky: You start with a dark blue and paint it halfway down, and then switch to a lighter, aqua blue, fill that area in , and quickly blend the two together while they are still wet. We will assume that you have some layers of color underneath, and not just a white canvas as you apply this wet-on-wet layer.
In addition, I start filling in the color in certain detailed areas such as the eyes, using a series of glazes. To make hazel eyes that look realistic, you use blue on the perimeter and yellowish brown (raw sienna) in the center. This gives it a jewel-like effect, just like a real eye!
I love this part of the painting. This is where you feel like the painting is mostly done and some onlookers would even say it’s done. But you want to give it “that special something” so that when you look at it up close, you see amazing little nuances and subtleties of color that rewards the viewer for taking a closer look.
Although the glazing technique is fantastic at achieving depth and shading, it leaves a grainy texture behind. To counteract that effect, I use semi-opaque layers on the top to smooth that out and blend everything in. I heighten the contrast on the subject’s faces, darkening the background enough so they stand out.
On the man’s hand, I glaze with blue to capture the veins. But it’s also the shading that helps describe that too. I add shadows under the veins and highlights on the top, and that really helps make it look real.
In the eyes and teeth, I add highlights to give the impression of moisture and glossiness. Every detail counts.
And finally, I call the painting done!
Hope you enjoyed this tutorial. Let me know if you have any questions and I’ll be in touch,
P.S. Did you find this post helpful or encouraging? If so, send it on ahead! Let others know with the share buttons below. I’d love to hear your comments. Thank you so much!
At the end of last year, (which was not long ago as I write this) I sent out a survey to my students and email subscribers asking this question–in many different ways.
Specifically, I asked 12 questions to nearly 800 subscribers.
From those who participated, the responses to the survey surprised me a bit. They may surprise you as well!
Interesting. I knew most of my subscribers were hobbyists but I didn’t know the percentage was that high.
This is good for me to know. Because if you want to learn how to paint abstract portraits, for example, you’re probably in the wrong place!
I knew skin tones would be the highest scoring, based on the conversations I’ve had on Facebook and in direct emails. Shading comes in at second place. So I guess it’s good that I already did a course on shading.
But apparently I should do one on skin tones! 🙂 And there’s plenty of other topics I can teach on too.
Now, I probably should have phrased my question better. Facial features really are eyes, nose and mouth all put together. But I think my subscribers were trying to say they’d like to learn how to do accurate portraits. How to capture the likeness correctly…yes?
I find it interesting that learning how to paint hair score higher than eyes. And the nose came in right after that.
Well, noses are tricky.
Maybe a course on painting noses would sound a little odd, but I’ll do it if that helps my students paint better portraits!
This totally amazed me. I know people like videos, but that is conclusive. I need to do more videos. I’ll still do some written tutorials here, but I am going to imbed some videos into the articles as much as possible.
It’s pretty amazing that a majority of my readers have purchased an online course. Amazing what technology can do and how it can bring us together from all parts of the globe!
This is a good stat right here. Nearly half of my subscribers would buy a course if they KNEW they would learn everything they needed to be able to paint that amazing portrait. And another fourth would be pretty likely to, again if they were confident they’d get the outcome they’re seeking.
My goal then, will be to show you that I can teach you exactly what you need to do just that, and to make the transaction risk-free as possible for you.
Okay, so it looks like I’m right on the money with what I charge for my course. Good to know. Obviously, I need to make a living as an artist and teacher and don’t want to under-price my labors, but I don’t want the price so high, that you can’t afford it. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve wanted to purchase a course on blogging or marketing, and then the price is $2,000 or more.
Really?
I could buy a nice used mini-van for that to haul more of my paintings around!
I’m glad that everyone could see the value of a course with critiques included. I love doing critiques and seeing the results my students get with them, but they take time, and so I need to charge a little more for that. And of course, less for a course without critiques. I think my subscriber’s responses here are intelligent and reasonable.
I should have added the question, “How important is a personal critique in a course? Or, put another way, do you prefer “self-study?”
(You can answer that in the comments below if you’d like 🙂 )
It seems that a majority of my subscribers would like a monthly membership program. I do have one right now: Realistic Acrylic All-Access Membership. With it, you get access to all the courses, plus personal critiques every month.
Nearly half have found my emails very helpful, and another quarter have found them pretty helpful. The remainder have found them decent, but not great. I’m glad I’m doing a good job overall, sharing lessons and tips that are useful, but it looks like I can still use some improvement.
I should have done a follow-up question or two: What can I improve on? What would you like to see more of?
Well, I’m asking you right now. 🙂 Let me know!
This wasn’t surprising. After all, I normally send an email about once a week, so that is what my subscribers are used to. I recently opted in on an email list for marketing tips, and at a certain point, they sent me 2-3 emails a day!
My inbox could only take so much. Unsubscribed.
Occasionally, I send out an email twice a week, when I have an announcement on a new course or something that’s time sensitive, but I promise my subscribers to never inundate their inboxes!
Finally, this last question was a freebie. It was wonderful to hear so many honest comments. Since the survey was anonymous, I was unable to respond back personally via email to the people who left the comments, but I will take the opportunity to do that now…
1. Would you consider stand alone critiques for a fee?
I would do standalone critiques for a fee, if that works best for you. Although I include a month worth of free critiques within my painting course, I would offer standalone critiques for $15 each.
These are personalized video critiques, like this one here, (approximately 15 minutes long) where I compare your painting next to the original image, discuss what’s working well, and show you exactly how to correct what may be off.
So, if you’re interested, just email me and let me know. I’ll set it up with you.
2 . I unfortunately am unable to purchase your courses…. even though I think they are brilliant but I am now retired and on a very low
income. I hope you understand
Of course I understand. I am still very glad that you’re a subscriber and you can still benefit from my free lessons and videos.
3 . I like your video’s but I cannot understand everything because of the language.
I am sorry about the language issue. Not sure if I can correct that, since I only speak English! Maybe there’s translation services out there for videos?
4 . I operate off an iPad. I subscribed to a painting course from you this year. Had a lot of trouble reaching the site as well as completely
missing the last sessions. Very disappointing. Like your paintings.
Thanks for the compliments on my paintings. I’m sorry if you were disappointed in not being able to access the later videos in the course. Email me. I think I can upload them to a private YouTube channel so you can see them.
5 . Hope to enroll and learn acrylic painting in the future, thanks Matt.
Ok, great, I look forward to teaching you. Maybe you already enrolled! 🙂
6 . So far I learn a lot. But I want to learn a lot about portrait painting.
Good. That’s what I’m here for!
7 . You rock!
Hey, thanks. God has been good to me…just want to pass the blessings along!
8 . I do only realistic wildlife and find it difficult to switch to a transparent style. I use it when I feel it suits the purpose. Always willing to
learn new techniques and appreciate your videos and the time you put in to them. Thank you, Les.
Hi Les, and glad you like the videos and appreciate the time I put into them. I plan on doing a lot more this year!
9 . I am concerned with the purchase of online content access; I nearly lost purchased access to content on another site.
Yikes! That would make me upset too. My courses are hosted by Teachable, and although they are not perfect, they are one of the most dependable learning management systems out there. Most of my students have had a great experience there. However, my course is satisfaction guaranteed, and you can always reach me by email or phone if you’re having problems with anything.
10 . As a former portrait photographer, I found that most adults like their portraits “retouched” to remove blemishes and soften ag lines. Do you get similar reactions on your realistic paintings?
Yes. One client said, “You can take my wrinkles out,” but to leave them on her husband. 🙂
11 . I love that you share your talent. I have taken a Craftsy class on painting animals. Her course was good for getting the fur and the
end result was very life like but not the “realistic ‘ artistry that you do.
Thank you. I am looking to fill a void here on the internet. There’s many teachers, but I haven’t found any that specialize in teaching realistic acrylic portrait painting. So, voila!
12 . Your course is wonderful.
Thank you so much!
13 . I just barely signed up & haven’t received any tutorials yet.
I’m sorry you didn’t get any tutorials yet. It might have been a glitch in my email service provider. Email me if you can and let me know if you still haven’t gotten anything yet!
14 . You are the best instructor. Thanks for your hard work.
Wow, thank you for the kind words!
15 . My answers re: cost were based on my limited funds, not their worth.
Sure, that helps to know that. Thanks!
16 . I appreciate the assistance you have sending to me. As a novice portrait painter, I admire your abilities.
My pleasure. Be blessed in your painting and may God take the skills He’s blessed you with and multiply them ten-fold this year!
17 . Have no idea what a course should cost but am interested…
My main online course, “Paint Your First Amazing Acrylic Portrait” is $97, one time fee. You can find out more or enroll right here.
That wraps it up for my first survey results. Did it surprise you? Does it make you think of anything you’d like to ask me?
Or maybe you’d like to leave a comment on what you’d like me to teach on. How have I been doing and how can I improve? I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Have a blessed day,
This was a commissioned portrait, a 16″ x 20″ acrylic on canvas, and it took me about 25 hours to do. Follow along in the process, and I believe you will learn a new approach to painting portraits in acrylic that will pleasantly surprise you!
Or, if you’ve tried my techniques before, this will be a good review for you.
The client wanted a painting that was in an oval vignette style, to match some existing portraits in her home. Here is the photo she supplied me with, to paint from. She wanted me to make his hair combed off to the side, unlike what you see in the photo. That’s an easy enough change to make.
Now, let’s go through the process on how I painted this portrait.
The sketch is the most important part of any portrait painting–whether in acrylic, oil or watercolor. The sketch is the foundation. Just like any house builder won’t build without a blueprint–unless they want a lopsided house–an artist shouldn’t plan do a lifelike portrait without an accurate sketch.
Some artists can work without one, starting very loosely, by just blocking in colors and value roughly, and work their way into detail–but it takes a lot of experience to pull that off. Many of those artists who can do that cut their teeth in learning how to draw, with hours of practice.
So for most artists–I recommend starting your painting with a sketch. You can use a grid or a projector to help if you haven’t done a lot of freehand drawing.
I have found that colored pencil is an amazing way to sketch on canvas. It works so much better than graphite pencil.
Why?
Well, first of all, you can choose a sepia or earth tone that really matches your skin tones within the portrait. Secondly, it is surprisingly easy to erase on a properly prepared canvas. Just go over your canvas with a mixture of 50%/50% gesso and matte medium.
Let it dry. And you’re set. You’ll be able to sketch and erase like a dream.
By the way, I use Prismacolor dark brown or terra cotta for sketching.
In the sketch, I make sure I’ve not only captured the shapes and lines of the baby’s face accurately, but I also want to get the shading in. Shading is what makes the difference on a portrait. So if you can get it in there during the sketch stage, it’s a lot less work figuring out where to go in the painting stage. Basically, all you’re doing is enhancing what you’ve put down in pencil.
After you’re confident the sketch is looking accurate, the next step is to seal it in. What I mean by that is this: you’ll take some matte medium (that’s the clear acrylic without pigment and dries to a flat finish–get it at your local art store) and you brush it on the sketch to create a barrier between the sketch and your painting.
The last thing you want to have happen is your sketch to get all messed up as you apply the brush in the painting process!
So, what I did was put the medium in a little condiment container (like what you put your ketchup in at a fast food restaurant, and you can buy these inexpensively at Walmart in the food storage section) and then start covering over your sketch. You’ll need to be careful, though, not to smear your sketch work!
Actually, you can make it work for you. I found that the medium started mixing with colored pencil pigment and turned into a glaze, or faint paint layer. I brushed it on in the direction of the contours of the face, and it enriched the color and contrast of the sketch. You can see the difference between the sketch before and after it was sealed in.
If it makes for less work in the painting stage…why not try something new?
Now, in this stage, it’s important to cut yourself a little slack.
Because when you start establishing the colors and value, your sketch is getting covered up a little, and you lose some of the overall cohesion of the values that you drew.
What I mean is that, you’re kind of in an in-between stage, and like any in-between stage in life, it can look a little awkward. If you have children, think of how they looked when they first started to walk. The could crawl like an expert, but once they started to walk, they waddled, wobbled, fell, maybe even cried, and got back up again.
So, in this stage, as you put down a few layers, things may look a little messed up.
No worries.
Just keep going.
Look at your reference photo and keep in mind, you have a blueprint to follow. Sooner or later, your painting will look very similar to what you see in the reference photo.
I used raw umber dark for the shadows, raw sienna, and alizarine crimson for the lighter areas. The crimson works well for establishing the pinkish tones in the baby’s cheeks and lips. Everything is very faint. I use matte medium to thin out the paint, and glaze it in with very minute layers. I love this technique. You can easily adjust the direction of your painting on the fly, and you can build up a lot of shading, even though acrylic dries so fast.
Finally, because the layers are translucent, the light shines through the surface, giving you a richness and a depth that will have people often mistaking your acrylic paintings for oils!
At this step, I wanted to make sure the baby’s eyes would be dark enough. I also wanted to darken certain spots of the painting so it more closely matched the values of the reference photo: areas like the hair under the ears, the shadow to the left of his neck, and the crevices in the mouth on either side of the teeth.
When you get the darkest values established, then you know what you’re up against. It makes it easier to know how dark to take the rest of the painting. Because with values and colors, everything is relative. Once you darken a certain area, it will look out of place until you darken everything else accordingly.
In addition, I added more color to the face and hair, using a mixture of raw sienna and alizarine crimson. But for the hair, I used mostly raw sienna. The trick with blond hair is to not make it look too yellowish. Many beginning portrait painters do that. It’s easy to do, because we’re conditioned to think of blond hair as yellow from the cartoons we’ve seen as children, and the way we’ve been taught to use yellow crayons to color it in coloring books.
But blond hair is actually a pale golden brown. And there’s other nuances of color in it too, depending on the lighting and even what colored objects are around that could reflect onto it.
Now the portrait is starting to look realistic. But there’s still a lot of work to do. 50% of your time will be spent getting the portrait to a stage where it looks passable. The other half is spent on smoothing things out and refining details. If you want your portrait painting to go to the next level, and have a portrait you can be proud to show others, you can’t miss the final steps. It takes some patience, but it’s worth it.
In this step, I added the reflections in the baby’s eyes. They’re not finished yet, but I started them. I added two light blue dots in the correct places within the pupil. That way, in the next step, I can add a smaller white dot in the middle of them and then they will look like there’s truly light reflecting off of them.
For the mouth, it’s important to make sure the coloring of the lips is correct, and that the teeth are not too white.
Again, because of our symbolic association of teeth being white, we often paint them with…white. But in actuality, most’ people’s teeth are not white even with a bright light shining on them. And then the shadows from the mouth itself causes them to appear even darker.
So what I did was mix raw umber dark and a little titanium white and then went over the teeth with that. I developed some shadows just around the edges with a few more layers, so they don’t look paper-flat. I pay attention to the shadows on the corners of the mouth, and that’s where it creates depth. Teeth should be lighter towards the center–the front teeth–because that’s where the light is hitting them.
For the background, I’ve been adding several layers of ultramarine blue, with a little raw umber dark, and alizarine crimson. This will create the oval vignette look that the client requested, and also some differentiation between the foreground and background. With this, the warmer colors of the face will come forward in space against the cooler tones of the background.
And that’s exactly what we want: to create depth.
One of the downsides of the glazing technique is that it creates a lot of unwanted texture. That’s because the semi-transparent glazes pool up in the pits of the canvas surface and creates an uneven look, when you view it closely.
To compensate for that, we have smooth it out.
I used the same colors I had throughout the painting, but then add a little titanium white to make the layers more opaque. You only want enough to partially cover over the previous layers. You still want all the other layer-work to shine through. It’s something you have to play with to get the correct amount. Also, keep in mind that when you add white to the layers, you cool them down color-wise, and so you have to add some warmer colors to compensate.
Unless you’re trying to cool the skin tones down on purpose. Then the white can help you with that!
I found that my skin tones overall were just a bit too warm, so I used the white–again, mixed in with other colors, and still thinned out with a glaze–to cool them down. You can’t do that so much on top of the darker values, however, or you’ll muddy up the color. There you’ll have to use raw sienna (which is very opaque) and mix a bit of alizarine crimson and ultramarine blue to offset the yellow.
At this step, you feel pretty good about the painting. It looks just about done, and because you’ve layered everything, you don’t have any white space left on the canvas, that would indicate the painting is not done.
And that’s a good thing.
But it’s good just to take it a bit further.
I went over everything: enhancing the contrast, putting in some final details within the eyelashes, the teeth, the shiny reflection on the lower lip to make it look moist (as you can imagine a baby’s mouth usually is.)
The hair needed a little more realism, so I added some highlights with raw sienna, indian yellow, and titanium white.
Also, I darkened the background with a few more layers to really heighten the contrast. And then I used some glazes of titanium white the smooth out the edges of the vignette oval and give it a cloudy look.
Although I could continue working on the painting for hours more, there is a point where the law of diminishing returns comes into play. At a certain point, you’re just pushing paint. You’re not really making a significant difference in the overall impact of the painting. And you are even starting to undo the good things you’ve accomplished!
That’s when you know it’s time to call it done. And so I did.
Finally, I signed it. That was the most fun step of all!
When you sign your painting, I recommend making your signature legible, but not too prominent, that it overshadows your work. It’s also good to use a color that’s similar to what’s already in the painting so it matches. In this case, I used ultramarine blue, and raw umber dark mixed with white.
After the painting was finished I emailed an image to the client for approval. When you’re happy and your client is happy, then your job is done.
Time to go out to dinner and celebrate!
Here’s a time-lapse video showing the whole progression of the portrait as I painted it. The video is about 5 minutes long. Enjoy!
Have a blessed day,
P.S. Did you find this post helpful or encouraging? If so, send it on ahead! Let others know with the share buttons below. I’d love to hear your comments. Thank you so much!
Losing weight, quitting smoking, exercising–so many fun things to choose from.
I don’t know if you’ve resolved to paint your best portrait ever in 2018, but it would be a fantastic thing to achieve wouldn’t it?
And a lot more enjoyable.
Imagine that you just painted a realistic portrait you’re really proud of. You show it to your family and friends, and they are amazed at what you created. Maybe you even give it as a gift, and the person who gets it is speechless. Wow. That would be amazing.
Acrylic on canvas portrait of a gulf war veteran, by Matt Philleo
There’s a lot of tips, techniques, tutorials, time-lapse videos that show many different ways to paint. Some of it is worth reading and watching. Some of it will lead you down a wrong path.
Much of the advice out there is based on oil painting or drawing techniques and just doesn’t apply to acrylic. There are some teachers who paint in acrylic very well, but they teach everything–portraits, landscapes, still lifes, abstracts, impressionism, surrealism, cubism, youcandoanythingism–so much, that you just get bogged down and confused on what to do.
I’d like to cut through all of that.
I’ve been painting portraits in acrylic since 1993, when I was still in high school.
Acrylic was hard to figure out at first. It dried so fast. How do you mix the colors? And mediums? So many to choose from, and what will they do to my painting?
The hardest part to figure out was how I could do a detailed sketch and then not obliterate it with paint. I mean, as soon as you touch the brush to the canvas, the graphite starts smearing and it looks terrible! Not to mention, the details are all covered up, so how can you keep the likeness in tact…so that the portrait looks like the person you’re trying to paint when you’re all done?
Needless to say, I was a bit over my head and very confused.
Then I went to a summer art camp at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, and that changed everything for me. I learned the glazing technique from instructor Norbert Kox, and it opened up a new world of possibilities in acrylic painting!
Here is one of my very first acrylic paintings done with the glazing technique, back in 1997…
“Morning Burst,” painting by Matt Philleo, acrylic on canvas, 1997
I learned that you can slowly glaze over your sketch with several faint, translucent layers of paint. The sketch can always be seen until the very end. What’s more, the light shines through, going through the layers of paint, reflecting off the white canvas beneath and back to your eye.
The painting almost glows.
Matt Philleo, artist, in his studio, posing next to a portrait of his wife, 16″ x 20″ acrylic on canvas, painted in 2017.
This is how the Old Masters created their masterpieces over 400 years ago. It is with that same technique, with a few modifications, that I plan to teach you through this site. My goal, this year, is to fill Realistic Acrylic Portrait School with a ton of useful information on how to paint lifelike acrylic portraits that I’ve learned from over 25 years of painting…from one artist to another.
So, sign up for my free personal email tips and guidance below, grab a brush and some paint, and let’s do this!
2018 can be your year to create the best portrait you’ve ever done.
All the best,
P.S. Did you find this post helpful or encouraging? If so, send it on ahead! Let others know with the share buttons below. I’d love to hear your comments. Thank you so much!