Help with portrait likliness

[scoobydoo]

Hi,
I need some help with my daughter portrait. It just not quite right can someone give me some tips how to correct please. i am going by the photo but it is my daughter holding the painting.
Photo ref.

[bethanyt]

It helps in the beginning stages to measure the photo to get the proportions of the features accurate. A good start on a front-on photo is to get the distance between the pupils and the angle of the eyes- this is slightly sloping with the right eye higher than the left.
In the painting you have made the relationship between the size of the eyes too large for the other features. The head proportion also seems too large in the painting

Hope this helps-




When I made the photo transparent, and laid it over the painting, you can see the differences.



I would also suggest turning both the photo and painting upside down to paint the shapes without thinking "this is an eye, this is a mouth etc"
Good luck with this.

[Journeyman]

At the moment you have a very stylised painting, not a bad thing.
Within that naivety you have a likeness, do you want to lose that naive innocence? Once you have lost it it will be hard to get back, Picasso had to work hard to see as a child.
It’s easy to tell you the eyes are to big the chin to pointed etc but there are more ways to paint than realism.

Dave

[karenlee]

If your goal is likeness, you may need to do several preparatory sketches to get the feel of the proportions of the face you are trying to draw. Portraits are the most difficult form of art to accomplish. Do not expect to get a home run on the first at bat! Bethany has given an excellent method for analyzing the proportions. Keep at it! You have a beautiful model!

[scoobydoo]

Thanks so much everyone. Im very new to painting so its great to have such friendly helpful feedback!
Ill keep working on her with all your tips in mind.
Cheers

[roy-p]

Thanks for the query scoobydoo, and to your daughter for being the subject. Gives me an opportunity to humbly share some experience. Great tips from Bethany (as usual!) - that overlapping technique is especially helpful, thank you!

This short, embedded video (here's the direct link to it on Youtube, in case embedding doesn't work for you) shows the basic construction lines used in drawing a portrait, as per Andrew Loomis' guidelines. Software used to paint digitally - Mypaint, and to screencapture - Camstudio.

Better use the Full Screen option to view it.

[Dana Design]

Prosenjit Roy, thank you so very much for sharing this! It will be enormously helpful to anyone watching!

[sdannie03]

I use a graph, for me it is the only way to get an exact likeness

[beetee]

Prosenjit Roy,great demo

[bethanyt]

Hi Prosenjit- (I was so sure I posted this yesterday!)
Thank you for your generosity in sharing your teaching with us.

[roy-p]

Dana, Brian and Bethany - I'm so grateful and happy, that you find this useful. Thank you!

[Art_by_Angie]

Roy-p: Yes thank you for sharing this teaching. I will try this as I have only used a grid or graphite transfer.

Scoobydoo- I like your style of portrait painting even if its isn't the exact likeness (eyes too big etc). What size is that canvas? And is that acrylic or oil? Keep practicing. Can't wait to see your next portrait.

[kevinwueste]

I think I now officially know what Sir-P sounds like! Great vid sir! ( young man!)

Kevin

[Andrew Rance]

Great demo video - learned a great deal. Thanks for sharing!

[roy-p]

Hi Angela, you're very welcome! I've never tried the grid method, but then you're in good company. They say Albrecht Durer, the great master had an optical grid instrument for that.

Sir K - I do 'officially' sound like myself, don't I? Thank you so much kind Sir!

Andrew, the pleasure is all mine. The credit really belongs to the originator of this thead.