In our last two lessons, I showed you how to cover your entire canvas with a series of three glazes covering the entire surface of the canvas as one layer.
Now, with this lesson, I’ll show you how to continue the process of adding layers on top of layers. We want to “rotate,” going back to the first glaze we did, and go on top of it with another glaze. And then to the next, and so on. Remember volleyball? It’s kind of like that. Every person gets a turn.
Here in the portrait using the acrylic glazing technique, every part of the picture gets a turn, having another glaze added to it. (There are some times when we break this rule, and I’ll show you that in the video lesson)
Here is where I’m at in the portrait, prior to this video lesson, after the work I did on Lesson #4.
Since we already have locked in the major differences in the color scheme and tonal value very simply, now we want to add more complexity to the painting.
We will be adding:
We will do this using the acrylic glazing technique, where we mix a TINY amount of acrylic paint into a LARGE amount of clear acrylic matte medium. It’s best to go very, very light when you start your painting. You should just barely see a difference.
Also, make sure you rinse your brush off thoroughly between glazes. Any extra water in the heel of the brush may cause your glazes to drip or get streaky.
You will repeat this process another time, with some variations.
Ready to paint?
Now, before you begin (yes, I have to ask you again, just in case 🙂 )…
Are you registered for the challenge?
If not, register below for FREE and I’ll send you:
REGISTER TODAY. The challenge is ongoing, something you can do at your own pace. It’s not too late to enter!
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Watch my in-depth Masterclass acrylic online tutorial below to see these steps in action.
After learning from this video, you’ll know exactly how to do it.
Make sure to watch the ENTIRE video first before diving into the painting. It will be worth it to do that. Then, I’d like you to go back and refer to whatever steps you need to as you paint. That way, you won’t miss any of the instruction and tips that will help you make this portrait your very best.
Here’s the video…
[PORTRAIT CHALLENGE] Masterclass Lesson #5: Building up Depth With Glazes
Excellent job staying with me and the other artists for this challenging portrait! The acrylic glazing technique takes some getting used to, but once you really “get it” you will be able to paint with a freedom, confidence, and sense of realism that will keep you encouraged to keep on painting more and more.
In our next class, I’ll show you how to add more glazes and build up the skin tones. It’s something so many artists aspire to: create those lifelike skin tones that just look real. And now with a good foundation in place, we can do it!
I’ll see you in our next class! Until then be blessed in your painting and you and your family stay safe and healthy.
Yours for Better Portraits,
If you found this post helpful or encouraging, would you send it on ahead? Let others know with the share buttons below. I’d love to hear your comments. Thank you so much!
Let me know if you have any questions about the challenge that I didn’t answer. Leave your question in the comments below and I’ll get back to you!
In our last lesson, I showed you how to prepare your canvas for painting by whiting out the grid lines, sealing in and muting the sketch, and preparing your palette.
Finally, we began the actual painting process with a glaze of ultramarine blue (a glaze is a small amount of acrylic paint mixed into a large amount of clear acrylic medium, usually matte medium).
Now, in this lesson (recorded LIVE), I will show you how to add the next two glazes, which will nearly cover the entire canvas with one layer.
Whereas the sketch is the actual foundation for the painting, this first layer is very important. It is like the floor joists when a house is built. The rest of the structure attaches to that, and so housebuilders take extra time to make sure they do it correctly. If they don’t they’ll end up with a structure that will end up sagging years, or even worse, collapsing!
In the same way, we want to make sure we have this first layer done correctly. Don’t feel nervous about it. You can still fix a painting that hasn’t been started correctly, and end up with a truly realistic acrylic portrait. It just will take you more time and effort to correct, and so it’s best to avoid that hassle if possible.
Our main goal right now is to establish the main value and color scheme of the portrait, simultaneously. We want to “lock-in” the contrast between the lights and dark values, paying attention to their specific edges, boundaries, and shapes. If you did the sketch according to Lesson #2, then you will know almost exactly where to place your initial glazes, because your sketch tells you where to put it.
We also want to observe the major differences in color within the reference photo, simplify it to “warm and cool” tones and use our inital glazes to plot that out. Then, future layers will be added on top of them, getting more and more complex as we go along.
But the initial glaze will serve us well.
It’s like how a major highway was often once a foot trail, then a cowpath, then a dirt road, then a paved road, and finally a highway. It’s a lot easier to upgrade a road, than to try to build a new one. You’d have to bulldoze trees, cut through rocks, level the land, and even remove homes if necessary.
In the same way, with the glazing technique, we are getting the compounded effect of each previous layer adding richness and depth to the ones that come after them. That’s why you want to start off right.
Again, as I’ve said in the last lesson: begin the painting lightly. Much lighter than you think. And certainly more than you’re used to painting, if you’ve painted for a while. If you just barely see a difference in this first layer, you’re doing it exactly right!
Let’s dive into the process…
Ready to paint?
Now, before you begin (yes, I have to ask you again, just in case 🙂 )…
Are you registered for the challenge?
If not, register below for FREE and I’ll send you:
REGISTER TODAY. The challenge is ongoing, something you can do at your own pace. It’s not too late to enter!
Register for the Challenge!
Watch my in-depth Masterclass acrylic online tutorial below to see these steps in action.
After learning from this video, you’ll know exactly how to do it.
Make sure to watch the ENTIRE video first before diving into the painting. It will be worth it to do that. Then, I’d like you to go back and refer to whatever steps you need to as you paint. That way, you won’t miss any of the instruction and tips that will help you make this portrait your very best.
Here’s the video…
[PORTRAIT CHALLENGE] Masterclass Lesson #4, LIVE: Establishing Your Color and Values
If you made it this far, congratulations! It’s not easy to start a painting so light, when your natural instinct is paint thick and dark right away. So, if you’ve followed my steps as best you can, high fives and hat’s off to you! Stick with this process, and you will be able to paint more confidently and realistically than you ever have before.
Now, since we have the complete glaze foundation work done on the painting—the hat, the face, the shirt, the background all has paint on it, we can move on and add more and more glazes—building up richness, depth, and detail. The painting will look more and more amazing each time we add another layer. There may be a few times where you’ll hit a few rough spots, but by God’s grace, I’ll show you how to navigate those challenges and finish your portrait well.
I’ll see you in our next class! Until then be blessed in your painting and may God guide your every brushstroke!
Yours for Better Portraits,
If you found this post helpful or encouraging, would you send it on ahead? Let others know with the share buttons below. I’d love to hear your comments. Thank you so much!
Let me know if you have any questions about the challenge that I didn’t answer. Leave your question in the comments below and I’ll get back to you!
In this lesson, you will learn how to slowly transition out of the sketch process and into the painting with confidence.
Instead of the typical way of painting—dumping a bunch of paint onto the canvas and hoping something good comes out of it, you will strategically begin your portrait with light, translucent glazing layers.
If you follow the heart of my method, you will not feel like the painting is out of control. You will be guiding the painting to a successful finish, rather the painting taking you and your emotions for a roller-coaster ride.
It takes patience.
So please don’t jump ahead, even though it feels you’re starting so slowly.
You’ll find that once we get the painting moving in the right direction, it will begin to take off, just like a car as it goes into higher gear. Your layers and brushstrokes will get bolder as you hit the midpoint of your painting, like a climax in a good movie or book. You’ll be moving much faster then!
Finally, you’ll slow down again.
You’ll gently add nuances and final touches to bring the portrait home and make it a masterpiece.
In our previous step, I showed you how to sketch your canvas to create a firm foundation for your painting. Not perfect, but accurate.
Now, in this lesson, we will finally get to the painting!
Ready to paint?
Now, before we begin (yes, I have to ask you again, just in case 🙂 )…
Are you registered for the challenge?
If not, register below for FREE and I’ll send you:
REGISTER TODAY. The challenge is ongoing, something you can do at your own pace. It’s not too late to enter!
Register for the Challenge!
Watch my in-depth Masterclass acrylic online tutorial below to see these steps in action.
After learning from this video, you’ll know exactly how to do it.
Make sure to watch the ENTIRE video first before diving into the painting. It will be worth it to do that. Then, I’d like you to go back and refer to whatever steps you need to as you paint. That way, you won’t miss any of the instruction and tips that will help you make this portrait your very best.
Here’s the video…
[PORTRAIT CHALLENGE] Masterclass Lesson #3: Beginning Your Portrait Painting Lightly and Confidently
The largest challenge of the glazing technique is overcoming the tendency to go dark and thick with your paint. But if you stick with this, even beyond this portrait, you’ll find the technique “clicking” and you’ll understand how it can help you to create a painting with incredible luminosity, smooth shading, depth, and detail.
In other words, a portrait that will “wow” others and you’ll feel proud to have created. And even more, a portrait you can give as a gift, hang on your wall (or someone else’s) and will be enjoyed for years to come.
There you have it! Now you know exactly how to begin your portrait lightly, and confidently. The next step is to build up depth with more glazes and see the amazing portrait fade in, slowly materialize before your eyes.
I’ll see you in our next class! Until then be blessed in your painting and may God guide your every brushstroke!
Yours for Better Portraits,
If you found this post helpful or encouraging, would you send it on ahead? Let others know with the share buttons below. I’d love to hear your comments. Thank you so much!
Let me know if you have any questions about the challenge that I didn’t answer. Leave your question in the comments below and I’ll get back to you!
In this video, I share how I painted an 11″ x 14″ portrait of three beautiful children, using the classical glazing technique.
This is not a time-lapse video, but rather real-time snippets of my studio process, step-by-step, with explanations of what I’m doing. I share all the tips I can within about 20 minutes so that you can learn to paint an amazing acrylic portrait that you can give as a gift or even do for a living!
This tutorial shows the entire process of painting a portrait. Here are the steps I show in this tutorial:
Watch the video below and happy painting! 🙂
Of course, I always love to hear from you. Please let me know how this video helps.
Also, do you have a question about your portrait that I could answer for you? Let me know in the comments below!
Yours for Better Portraits,
If you found this post helpful or encouraging, would you send it on ahead? Let others know with the share buttons below. I’d love to hear your comments. Thank you so much!
This was something I’ve always wanted to do: create art while camping. And for all the years I’ve gone camping, I’ve never been able to successfully do it.
But finally, at the end of June, my brother and I decided to go camping at a rustic yurt up in Cable, WI. Where is that? Let’s just say, it’s “way up north.” 🙂 And what is a yurt? It’s a round tent-like house, a permanent structure made of lattice wood, bound together with steel cable, and covered with fabric. We rented it through Airbnb for two days.
We parked at the bottom of the hill and carried our gear up about a mile. We realized how out of shape we were! I also had my painting supplies: easel, palette, and brushes with me. In the middle of hiking and cooking, we decided to both do a little work: my brother wrote (he’s an author) and I painted.
I know. You’re probably thinking I should have painted the scenery up there, and yes, it was beautiful. But I had a commissioned portrait from a photo to get done: a painting of a veteran that served in the gulf war. And I love painting people, so it hardly seemed like work.
After bacon, eggs, and oatmeal for breakfast, it was time for painting.
Here is a video showing the beginning part of the process. In this video, I am basically blocking in the values with just raw umber dark and ultramarine blue. Of course, it’s all thinned out and made translucent with matte medium.
And then, here’s the next video in the process. Here I’m adding some color with burnt sienna, alizarine crimson and a few other colors. We’re starting to build up some skin tones. Also working on the flannel shirt. It takes a lot of layers to get it dark enough to look realistic!
After lunch, we hiked, and then came back and did more work: refining the shadows and making sure the likeness is accurate.
Sometimes your sketch just won’t cut it. It will get you about 80% of the way there, and you do the remaining 20% with paint. As you apply the paint, you can change the shape of the nose, the distance between the eyelids, lengthen the smile, etc., to adjust whatever might have been off during your sketch.
Of course, there is more to go on the painting. I’ll share the rest with you soon. I wasn’t able to finish it at the yurt, but I put in several hours. So, not only did I get to spend some great quality time with my brother, but I got to do some enjoyable work as well. After the big move, I finally feel like I’m getting into a regular groove of painting and posting tutorials. Thanks so much for your patience.
UPDATE: Here is the final video of this portrait, painted at my regular studio…
And a photo of it…
I really enjoyed painting this for the client, putting all the elements–the map of Iraq, the capitol building, and the people together into one cohesive portrait that I hope will be a cherished keepsake for the family for years to come.
I hope this painting has encouraged you and given you some ideas to use in your own portrait painting. I would love to help you learn to paint portraits your very best. Let me know if I can be of more help to you in any way.
Yours for better portraits,
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!
I use the glazing technique to slowly bring the portrait from a white canvas to completion. The glazing technique is achieved by mixing your paint with clear acrylic medium (usually matte medium) to disperse the pigment, thus allowing light to pass through.
Although you could use water, it’s not recommended, because it breaks down the acrylic resin binder, causing a rough visual texture and possible poor adhesion. For a smoother look, you want to use clear acrylic medium.
I hope these questions and answers were helpful to you as well. I know some of this stuff seems pretty basic, but it’s good for all of us to pause and think about why we do what we do. It then makes the doing that much more significant.
Let me know if you have any questions of your own about acrylic portrait painting and I’ll do my best to help!
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!
In this painting I did toward the end of 2018, actually two 14″ x 20″ oval vignette bubble portraits, I demonstrate how the glazing technique works, in about nine minutes. If you would like to see the process, at a slower pace, with explanations of my technique, check out this post here.
And now for the 9-minute timelapse video…
Let me know how you enjoyed this video and if you have any questions on acrylic portrait painting, I’ll be happy to help.
Yours for better portraits,
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 kind of background will look great, match your colors, and yet allow the subjects to stand out. In this video, we’ll look at the beginning part of the process. This is based off a commissioned portrait painting I did of three children, a 16 x 20, acrylic on canvas…
Let me know how this helps! If you have questions on your portrait painting, feel free to contact me ([email protected])
Yours for better portraits,
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!
I’d like to let you know that I’ll be teaching at the Chippewa Valley Cultural Association (Heyde Center for the Arts, Chippewa Falls, WI) on March 12-13, 10:30am-3:30pm, a two-day intensive acrylic portrait painting workshop. The class size is limited to 10 people to make sure I can give each student feedback and individual instruction. For more details, visit my events page here…https://realisticacrylic.com/paint-an-acrylic-portrait-with-me-in-2019/
I’d like to share the process with you in a time-lapse video. In this brief video, you’ll see very quickly how you can paint a realistic acrylic portrait using the glazing technique.
Would you like to learn how to paint like this, with individual lessons broken down and explained?
Learn How to Paint Acrylic Portraits With My Free Mini-Video Course!(The lessons show me painting a different picture, but the technique is the same. Enjoy! 🙂
Let me know how this helps.
Yours for better portraits,
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!
I have a student named Holly, who has just started painting portraits in acrylic. She is currently working on one of her brother, and she was unsure of how to continue after beginning the glazing process. With her permission, I’m going to share her portrait with you. We all know what it feels like to get stuck during painting, especially when starting out…
Hi Matt,Thank you for your advice and the progress photos you sent of your artwork. That really helped. I’ve watched a lot of the student videos and I’m trying to apply everything to my painting. I feel like it looks kind of terrible so far so maybe I’m not doing it right. I’m worried about painting any more shadow in on his face because it looks bad – especially his eyes. I definitely feel like I don’t know what I’m doing. Haha. I don’t know what to do about his hair or face. And the white shirt with the dark creases. And the brass jacket buttons. I’m following your list of paint colors to use for the skin tones off of your skin tone video and that is very helpful. But I just feel kind of lost as to the layering process. For instance, for the face, I don’t know how many layers of shadows I’m supposed to do before I move onto layers of midtones. And how many layers of midtones do I do before I move onto highlights? And when I’m painting the midtones, do I paint over the shadow areas as well? Or only paint on the midtone areas?Thank you so much for your help!Holly
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!