Oil Portrait Painting

The portrait painting commission began with a visit to my client's home where we discussed how he would like to be portrayed in the painting. It was decided that he would sit in his favourite room reading the newspaper surrounded by familiar and much loved objects and artworks. I took a series of photographs of my client and chose the one where he looked most relaxed and comfortable. 

Here you can see the different stages of the artwork and how it is important to work from light to dark colours when using oil paints. It is however possible to work over layers that have already been painted.

It was necessary to work on the face for a considerable amount of time and use artistic licence as unfortunately the photo had quite a lot of shadow in this area.

The finished piece.