72 Artists & Illustrators
Avoid overworking things or
blending the strokes together. Keep
the strokes looking blocky for now,
almost like a patchwork quilt, and
focus instead on achieving the right
tonal values.5
ADD HIGHLIGHTS
The highlights will really start to
bring the whole illusion of form and
shape together. When painting the
highlights, avoid pure white as it can
sometimes flatten the whole effect.
Instead, slightly tint your Titanium
White with a little Yellow Ochre or
some premixed flesh colour from
elsewhere on your palette.Start to introduce the tones of the
clothing, using a bigger brush so as
not to take away attention from the
more refined face. The blue clothing
adds a welcomed cool colour to what
is otherwise a very warm painting.6
MODEL THE FEATURES
Start to model the facial features,
working from dark to light. I use the
word “model” deliberately as you
should focus on the correct placement
of the features and not obsess over
the tiny details. Keep stepping back
from the canvas, assessing how your
painting looks from a few paces away.
When painting a facial feature,
don’t simply paint the eyeball, for
example, but instead focus on the
whole eye region, including the
eyebrow, cheekbone and bridge
of the nose.7
MAKE SUBTLE TWEAKS
Add cooler and paler colours to
the skin tones. Greens and pale blues
observed in the hair to give a welcome
contrast to the warm skin tones.
Apply them very subtly, allowing them
to merge slightly into the already wet
oil paint. Be careful not to overwork
them though, otherwise they can
end up as a brown, muddy mess.
Restate the darks and lights
needed for the facial features.
In this particular painting, this
involved darkening the upper eyelids
and highlighting the forehead, which
I tried to paint in one single stroke.
To finish things up, make subtle
adjustments to the hair. Be sure to
paint it softly, as if it were smoke, so
as not to draw attention away from
the facial features.
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