Portrait 78/100

 

I have been asked to paint all three of a client's children, and am really happy with how the portraits are coming out. All of the reference photos have toothy smiles, so I'm getting more and more practice doing teeth and can declare that I no longer have a "no teeth" policy. :)

I gessoed the panel with an unbleached titanium color gesso. I liked the brown/taupe overall look of it and was even thinking that the dark underpainting on the hat and shirt should be left alone to provide a contrast in texture with the rest of the painting. In the end I decided against it, because the other two portraits have colorful backgrounds, so I needed to keep them more visually consistent.

This is oil paint on an mdf panel.

Portraits 71–77/100

I found the reference image for this series of portraits on Pinterest. My apologies to the photographer—I don’t know their name—but the subject is the actor Alba Rohrwacher. I’m using the reference photo for practice rather than for profit, so I hope that this falls within acceptable copyright use. I painted these on ungessoed, unprepared Kraft paper, so I expect the paintings to disintegrate eventually anyway!

In the main image, I did my usual thing, trying to pin down specific color patches for different areas of the face. In the panel of smaller, quicker paintings, I used a monochromatic modeling system that I recently learned about from an excellent video by Kerry Dunn. His demos were far more impressive than you might guess from my attempts here.

I’d like to keep practicing this method, as I think it will be especially helpful when painting from live models. In the videos, Kerry uses thick and thin passages of burnt umber for the shadows, and then another color (usually orangey, mixed with various amounts of white) for modeling the light side of the face. In its simplest form, this is the only color added, but he also demonstrated how and where he begins to introduce other colors into the face. I may not have interpreted his method correctly, so if you’re interested, I recommend following him to see his videos. He has offered videos periodically on instagram, and you sign up in the comment section when he makes these offerings. @paintkerrypaint on Instagram.

Portrait 70/100

I started this painting of a lovely young woman at a portrait session in Alhambra, and then I took it home and finished it from a photo. Most of my struggles came from the background. As you can see, I started with a beige (matching reality), then a purple, and then somehow landed on this abstract color bomb!

Portraits 68 and 69

 

I am very excited to announce here that I will be one of 30 teachers in the online course Let's Face It 2026. 

 

If you enroll in this course, you will see how I painted these two portraits. In each lesson, I’ll walk you through color mixing, sketching, blocking in big shapes with average colors, and refining with smaller color patches as the portrait develops. You’ll see it all—from those rare moments of perfect paint application to the inevitable missteps and fixes along the way.

 

Sign up for Let’s Face It 2026 and receive a brand-new lesson every week throughout 2026 (50 weeks total!) from one of 30 incredible guest artists. The course offers a wide range of mediums and techniques focused on portraits and figures, plus a welcoming community of artists who support and inspire one another.

 

Join the fun—you won’t regret it!

 

Registration opens Monday, October 27, but the link above will get you on the waitlist. An early bird discount of $129 is available for the first 1000 signups.

 

 

Portrait 67/100

 

This handsome guy is a commissioned piece, so thank you to Karen for asking me to paint her son. In the reference photo, I believe it is Karen standing behind him in a shirt of a gorgeous blue (lots of phthalo!), and that made a wonderful background color for this portrait. This painting proceeded pretty smoothly, except at the end, when Karen noticed that I had made his nose too bulbous. A mother can see everything, and she was absolutely right! So I fixed that and brought the likeness closer to him. And now she is happy and so am I!

I put some process shots, including the painting before the requested edits, below. This painting is in oil paint on a 6x8" mdf panel.

Portrait 66/100

I’m still following along with the week of online lessons called Creative Jumpstart, LFI 2026, that finished on Friday. This portrait is from Kara’s lesson, which she did with a big brush and acrylic paint, and she ended up with a very expressive portrait. I’ve gotten attached to oil paint, so that’s what I used, and my brushes were probably too small for anything that expressive. Even though I deviate a lot from the materials and instructions, I enjoy the company of the teachers and am eventually going to get to the last two lessons.

Here are some process images:

Portrait 65/100

 

I’m still following along with a week of online lessons called Creative Jumpstart, LFI 2026. This is installment 2 of 5. I didn’t have all the supplies to follow along exactly—instead of a nib ink pen and black ink, I used micron pens and black gouache. This was fun! And adding the shading lines was a meditative task and was so relaxing. So-- fun and relaxing. Based on lesson by Dylan Sara.

Here are some process photos: