In this “how to” I am going to show you the techniques I use to paint a portrait. Before I start here is a list of the ma- terials I use. For airbrushing I used my Paasche AB Turbo for detail and my Iwata HP-BH for larger areas. The paint I use is Metalflacke and will be working on paper size 70 by 50 cm ( that’s about 27 by 20 inches). I use an elec- tric eraser for highlights and mixed 3 tones of Gray using a color wheel for reference. As I said before in other articles the most important thing is that you have good reference
material. I use three different photos of the subject and study them before I even start mak- ing a
drawing.The bet- ter you prepared before you start, the better your end result will be.
Enough talking lets go to work!
After drawing the subject; which took me about 1.5 hours, I used Frisk Film to cover the main subject so that area will stay clean from over spray. The background is rendered using my Iwata and my three mixed Gray tones. My goal is to build up the tones until its nearly the same as the original picture using my color wheel to compare the two, the photo refer- ence and my painting.
When I have completed the left side I start on the right side of the back- ground. The right side is much darker as it’s in shadow so painting this side is different then painting the left side, which is why I first finished the left side. Some artist prefer finishing the main subject and then paint the back- ground, its really a matter of personal preference as to which you do first.
After removing the Frisk its time to go the work on the most interesting part of this painting the eyes, nose and mouth. Using my Paasche AB Turbo I fully finish the eyes in detail as I will be using the eyes as a colour reference for the rest of the painting. I know that many artist work differently, I think you should experiment and find out what works best for you when paint- ing a portrait. Here I will show you my technique I hope you can incorporate some of what I have shown you into the technique that works best for you.
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