Kevin - Completed

Below is the completed oil portrait of Kevin (I will probably take a better photo later). Kevin is actually an artist himself, working in various media including drawing and pottery (and yes, he did design the pendant he is wearing!) He is working on a website, and I will post it as soon as it is available.

Kevin - Progress 9

Oil painting is such a slow process for me, since I am still so new to the medium. Anyway, after about another couple of hours work today (I've been too distracted with other things to give this portrait a full-day's work) I have adjusted the background and smoothed out the shirt a bit. Tomorrow I'll make minor adjustments, and hopefully sign it.

Kevin - Progress 8

Here I've done a little bit more adjusting to the skin tones, but I now see that the background is very distracting. Sometimes I like bold backgrounds, but this just isn't one of those times. I'm going to tone it down next, and then work on the shirt and necklace.

Kevin - Progress 7

The skin tones are better now that I've toned them down a bit. Next I'll be cleaning up and fine tuning.

Kevin - Progress 6

I've done a little bit more work in the photo here, and the next step is to tone down the ruddiness and orange tint, especially on the left hand side of his face. I've actually started this process, but I want to get more done before posting a progress photo. Painting over the entire face is difficult because I want to tone down certain areas, while maintaining general facial contours already in place.

Kevin - Progress 5

Getting there... I'm still not happy with the background, and the shirt obviously still needs detail. I'll do that next, and then re-evaluate the piece as a whole.

Kevin - Progress 4

Continuing on with the portrait of Kevin... the shadow under the eye on the right is still too harsh, so I'll be toning that down next. I will also be adding texture to the shirt and necklace, while adding more layers of paint to the background.

Kevin - Progress 3

Here I've blocked in more color, and now I have a lot of refining to do in the face. I tend to use a lot of red and orange in the early stages and then tone it down later on (almost like adding skin on top of the flesh).

Kevin - Progress 2

Adding more of the background and shirt definitely helped, but I have a lot more work to do...

Kevin - Work in Progress

I started an oil portrait recently trying an Ampersand panel designed for oil painting. I really like the fine texture of the board, and I'm not missing the "give" of traditional canvas working on this panel.

This is in a rough phase still, especially the edges, forehead, and right side of his face. I need to finish blocking in the background and color of the shirt so I can better judge the edges and skin tones.