Taylor Swift portrait in the manner of William Bouguereau

Hi there I have just painted this portrait of Taylor Swift to demonstrate an aspect of Bouguereau’s technique, working straight into colour from the drawing. I worked on it for around 4 hours including the drawing stage. Below is the drawing stage which I completed using Burnt Umber and Linseed oil medium in a kind of ‘bistre’ effect. I did model some of the…

Portrait of a young girl after Rubens, 2nd glaze!

Hi there, I’ve been looking forward to doing this for a while, and now I’ve completed the films of both the glazes. Here is a photo of before and after the 2nd glaze. So this is the painting again showing the change from the 1st to the 2nd glaze, and then following on from that you can see the 2nd glaze next to the…

Portrait of a young girl after Rubens, grisaille underpainting

I’ve been finishing the grisaille for this portrait painting copy off camera, which is relaxing! I worked on it for another 2 hours roughly, mainly adding pure black here and there and adjusting the shadows. There were a few areas where I sharpened the drawing, but its a fine balance between trying to work in a way that is possibly similar to Rubens and…

After Bouguereau grisaille underpainting

After drawing in this Bouguereau I painted the grisaille. I’m not normally used to modelling the forms so thoroughly but I found that to be a very valuable experience, because I don’t think I have ever done it! I have found in the past that as long as the drawing is correct in the grisaille then the glazes and half-pastes (with white) will continue…

Learning the glazing technique from Bouguereau, new series of videos

I’m embarking on another short series of videos on my youtube channel showing the process of copying this part of a Bouguereau painting from start to finish. I hope to use this as a way to learn about his process and to improve my own glazing technique. Bouguereau primarily used grisaille and glazing as a method of painting and his glazing has a beautiful…

Commissioned portrait painting

These images (the 1st 2 are film stills) show the first 3 glazes as they went on, alongside the initial underpainting. This portrait was a challenge in the sense that I underestimated how light the reference was and how light the final painting would be,  so the grisaille was too dark to begin with and the glazes darkened it further. It is still a…

Portrait painting showing grisaille underpainting

This is a detail of a painting that I have shown before of the effect of glazing over a grisaille underpainting in a short time.

Drawing is the foundation of portrait painting – Ballet lesson

Here is a portrait of my daughter at ballet class that I painted before attending Louis Smith’s glazing workshop. To begin I painted the whole thing in a ‘dead layer’ or monochrome using Burnt Umber, Ivory Black and Titanium White. Then I did some very thin coloured oil glazes and some ‘half-pastes’ where you’ve got a bit of white mixed with the glazes, which are more…

Glazing over acrylic underpainting video

Here is a new video of me working on a first colour glaze in oils, over an acrylic grisaille underpainting, which is a new medium for me. I’m trying to speed up the process a little bit. It took a while to get the hang of acrylic, something I’m still progressing with. The grisaille is done using raw umber and titanium white, but hopefully…

Portrait painting step by step, glazing over grisaille

I’ve nearly finished this portrait painting. Its had 5 glazes over the initial underpainting. This picture shows the grisaille, the first glaze (which I filmed and is on youtube) and then the 5th glaze which is almost the last one. I still intend to go over the hair and background again amongst other things. The background was a dark green the glaze before this!…