Journal of My Oil Painting Techniques

This is my first oil painting techniques journal post. This is a portrait sketch of one of my friend. She came down for my Memorial Day Barbeque party today and was nice enough to sit for me for couple of hours. I enjoyed painting her distictive tomboyish features. I tried to do my best to capture her personality as well as the likeness.

I first mixed up a large portion of the light skin’flesh tone with a big filbert bristle brush. When I had a big glob of paint on the brush ,I dabbed it onto the surface trying to indicate the face and the overall placement of it.

I kept on dabbing on thick globs of paint, as if a sculptor would throw on piles of clay to start his sculpture. I did not worry about likenesses or accuracies at this point

Then i modelled the painting more to form more of a solid head, giving it understructure, then I started inserting the feature, the eys, nose, and the mouth on top of the understructure I have established.

I continued refining the features and the overall formation of the head, then I began placing the masses of the hair and the outlines of the head.

I continued refining ,polishing , and adding details