Portrait of Taylor Swift in the manner of William Bouguereau. An oil painting demonstration

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 lights and darks in the hair but that was only so that I could clarify the drawing. A true bistre might also model the forms of the face, but here my intention was to finish the drawing so that I could focus on the colour in the video demonstration.

Portrait of Taylor Swift – Burnt Umber bistre drawing

Here is a before and after picture. The first colour glaze took about 90 minutes

Portrait of Taylor Swift showing the drawing stage in burnt umber and linseed oil medium, and then the first colour glaze

In my portraits I would use this colour layer as a kind of underpainting and continue to refine the modelling in further glazes. The demonstration is on my youtube channel, link below.