You could read Kyle Surgess’s blog. He paints life sized objects with tiny brushes and describes some of the processes he uses:

https://www.nitpickyartist.com/blog

If she had and it wasn’t your style you might have given up.. which would be a sad loss for us all

it isn’t that no one wants to teach it ,, it is the fact that it couldn’t be taught in one book or many videos as it is hugely involved including many many skills that would take forever and a day ,, they are good because they put the hours , days , weeks , months , years and decades into their art and every journey starts with the first step such as basics how light falls on things the biggest thing is training the eye to notice every little detail , shape colour etc etc … I’m friends with a realist that spends quite a bit on studio gear to achieve the minute details that make a huge difference , such as magnifiers , daylight lighting , photography studio lighting ,, a large turnover in expensive minute detail brushes ,, installing windows on the best light gathering side of his studio , I could have lied and said watch a video , but truth is it’ll be hundreds of videos , and many years ,, and be prepared to work for months on one painting putting many hours a day in inbetween drying times

To achieve what you want you need to take a serious look to the materials you use. Instead of cotton canvas, the support should be wood panel, or Linen, a good selection of fine detail brushes, artist oil paint, good drawing skills, magnification glass, the best medium and varnish, including stand oil, a comfortable mahl stick, and patience, lots of patience.

Good luck.

Bill, you are most welcome. I have a method of applying one edge with a stroke, and blending out the other side of the stroke. My strokes and brushes are bigger than this guy, but I don’t want the level of hyperrealism he is employing. Still though, I do appreciate the skill and work involved in his paintings.

Hello all,
I haven’t been posting recently (dealing with health issues and multiple doctor visits for the first time in my life) and have not been painting as much as I’d like, but since my name has been brought up a few times I thought I’d chime in.

Sorry to say Ellis I have never found 1 source for ‘photorealism instruction’. I’ve found, going back 6-7 years to the beginning of my painting odyssey, many good painters willing to share info as to their style and workflow even though their finished product wasn’t necessarily photorealistic.

That’s basically the story of my life; take a tip here, a technique there, mix it up with a whole lot of trial and error, and just push on with the task at hand and make the next painting better than the last one. Learn from your mistakes and always make the next one bigger and better in all aspects. Always set yourself up for success, if you need a tool, go buy it, don’t give yourself any excuse to screw something up:). Take your time. Accept that today’s hard work yielded a square inch of painting finished – or less. Accept that the painting you’re working on may be done by next Christmas, or maybe not. Get the best reference photos. Take 200 pictures, edit them, get multiple copies developed, in different exposures (to see shadows better, etc.) Use the best supports, paints, brushes, etc. that you can afford.
Make mistakes. Then fix them.

I can go on, but this probably ain’t helping anybody:). Look at my few WIP threads, study the pictures, and ask me questions, if it’ll help. I may not be in the best of health right now but I’m still (relatively) young and kicking and still read WetCanvas every day.

Gonna get back to painting a kiwi now, good luck Ellis! You’ve been producing great work, keep it up and you won’t need any advice or video from anyone:).