Portrait Painting in Acrylic

• 1 min. short (thick acrylic mediums)
• 1 min. short (thin acrylic mediums)
• 1 min. short (brush cleaning tanks)
• 1 min. short (storing acrylics)
• 1 min. short (quinacridone orange)
• 1 min. short (canvas dents)

• 1 min. short (acrylic varnishes)
• 1 min. short (flesh tones)
• 1 min. short (storing paintings)
• 2 hours, 12 min video (Part 1)
• 2 hours, 47 min video (Part 2)
• 3 hour video (Part 3)

• Paint Colors Playlist
• 1 min. video (Naples Yellow)
• 1 min. video (Color palette)
• 1 min. video (Cadmium Red Light)
• 1 min. video (Quinacridone Magenta + Yellow Iron Oxide)

• 1 min. video (Pthalo colors)
• 1 min. video (Manganese Brown)
• 1 min. video (Quinacridone Orange)
• 1 min. video (Pyrrole Red & Cadmium Red Medium)
• 1 min. video (Neon colors)

• Don’t concern yourself with making your painting an exact replica of the reference photo.
• In fact, the painting will have more expression if you are more willing to shift the colors according to your goals for the painting.
• Burnt Sienna can be an effective underpainting, especially for portraits because it has a lot of yellow in it.
• Getting rid of the white of the canvas with a light wash of Burnt Sienna can help build up the foundation of the portrait.
• When painting the initial sketch of the portrait, it’s important to establish the head, neck, shoulders, hair and ear.
• Starting with the eyes, nose and mouth for a portrait doesn’t establish the structure of the head, as none of those facial features have any of the bony landmarks on the skull.
• Often people overlook how critical the neck is to painting an effective portrait, it is the structure the head sits upon.

• In the beginning part of the painting, it’s very helpful to start with large brushes, like a 10 or 12.
• Painting with a large brush might feel awkward, but small brushes tend to make people too detail oriented too soon in the process.
• Stay with the large brushes as long as you can, even when they feel too large for what you’re painting.
• Painting with a palette knife is a great way to stay loose and slap on large areas of opaque colors.
• The initial layers of the painting are largely opaque, so that a foundation of paint is present which enables you to add glazes of transparent paint later.
• Consider mixing mixtures that are on your palette, you can get colors that are more nuanced than mixing only colors that are straight out of the tube.
• Think about your brush as a plane constructing tool, articulating the larges planes on the face first.

Art Supplies

• Sennelier Abstract Acrylics
• Charvin Acrylics
• Matte Medium
• Fan Brush
• Fredrix Pro Belgian Linen
• Glass palette
• Freezer Paper (alternative palette)
• Palette Knife
• Filbert brush
• Bristle brushes
• Flat brush
• Cotton rags
• Window scraper
• Wide palette knife

Acrylic Colors

• Titanium white
• Alizarin crimson
• Cadmium red
• Cadmium lemon
• Yellow ochre
• Cerulean blue
• Ultramarine blue
• Burnt umber
• Burn Sienna

MATERIALS PROVIDED BY

• Fredrix

Reference Photo