Painting Portraits by Ordaz

Happy Birthday Isaac. 17 years old today! This is a small sketch for a painting I am composing called " what if? " Isaac had a great time in cross country and he and several teammates got flu like symptoms right around the time of the section finals. He lost a minute and a half off his time and almost passed out 3/4 through the race. But he finished and was somewhere else in thought as he surveyed the winners.






Dear Reader,

I hope all is well with you and that you are prospering in your art pursuits. I am demonstrating how I go about painting a portrait with the knowledge that there are many more qualified to do this but if I have your attention then it is my hope that I may add some information that may help you in achieving your goal. It is also important to understand that there are many other techniques that are equally valid, however, the student must find and apply an approach that works for him or her. Because at the end of the day, the sitter is not going to care how you came about to do it, only that it looks like them!

Having taught portrait painting many times over , for review , I tend to see the same mistakes repeated time and again. One area that seems to be difficult for the student is getting the right length of the nose. More often than naught, the nose of a sitter is often painted or drawn too long. There is a remedy for this. One way is to take a picture and project the photo onto the canvas. Of course that would take the fun out of painting. There is another way and that is triangulation and measuring with your paintbrush. You have probably heard this term Triangulation applied to politics but it is also applicable to surveying. Once you have established a "Benchmark" you can accurately find other locations by means of a triangle. This is contingent that you have established one point in the portrait as your benchmark. In our case, it will be the eye.

I often start out drawing a circle for placement of the head in a light wash. I then locate the horizontal and vertical center and indicate that with a light wash line. Often times I see students draw these lines fairly thickly and with much pigment. That may be okay if your subject will be in the shade but if your portrait has a lot of light areas you will spend unnecessary time painting over the dark lines. Once I have established one eye location I establish the next eye location as best I can. There is always adjustments and shifts at the initial stage so take your time and really look and see what is happening on the individuals face. I have attached a schematic by Andrew Loomis, a noted illustrator who wrote many how to books in the 40's, and his proportional lines are a good learning tool to get general proportions right. Of course, I have yet to find that perfect chiseled face. What makes you you is your uniqueness. We are not cookie cutter and the artist who paints every sitter like a Disney Portrait Session will soon end up with a tired repetitive formula.

I will use the tried and true average of the "Thirds method" in locating the mouth , eyebrows and hairline horizontals but they are only suggestions at this point. I will use my brush and align the center of the eye ball to the bottom of the nose . I do this with my arm fully extended. This alignment will create an angle. As this angle intersects the third that locates the bottom of the nose I have roughly located the proper distance of the nose. I then check the triangle that I have created with the two eyes and the bottom of the nose.

Okay here is the REALLY COOL part and it really works. Measure with the end of your brush extended the distance between the eye ball centers. Now keep your thumb at the measurement point and place one end over the eyeball center as best you can and the other end with your thumb at the bottom of the nose. The sitters nose will be slightly longer or shorter of this measurement. Its really works and will help you get that important feature right the first time out. Trust me it works!




Understanding planes is one way of painting a portrait. These are small drawings I did for my students in explaining the contours of the eye socket.

Below are some photos taken by one of my students of a portrait demo. I had a photo of my mom and it is important to SEPARATE your lights from your darks. This is a mantra that all my students get after taking one of my classes. A painting breaks down when too much is seen in the shadow area or the light masses is broken up with too many halftones. Keep the light planes as simple and distinct as you can. Questions welcomed.






Tomorrow ANOTHER COMMON MISTAKE made by all of us...treating the hairline.