An Introduction to Painting Portraits

This text focuses on portrait painting, and provides step-by-step demonstrations of how to create certain effects with different media, such as acrylic, oil watercolour and pastels. It questions what makes a good likeness in relation to proportion, fluency and selecting the right medium. There is advice on the use of photographs, self-portraiture and the commission process, and steers a course through the underlying forms of the head and face by discussing foreshortening, measuring and proportion. It explains the problems of each facial feature, from eyes, ears, noses and mouths to hair and spectacles with demonstrations of how to manipulate colour to achieve a range of skin tones.