Mountain Man Alla Prima Oil Portrait 4 tips

Описание: This video is intended to encourage you to try painting directly without a preliminary sketch. "Wait, what!" More information on my website at https://mmahon.com.

Yes. Most of the time I strongly recommend that a careful drawing be done as the first step in doing a portrait. But there is a time to paint instinctively. This is only effective if a good deal of time has been spent doing careful drawings and developing an mastery of the proportions of the human face. This video gives a few good pointers for taking that step to painting with more spontaniety. Of course, for a really good likeness a careful preliminary drawing is very important. The experience of a more gesture like painting may not give you a great likeness but will help you develope a looser style when you do the more careful portrait work.

The 4 tips for painting without drawing first are the following:
1. Use the largest brush possible. This forces you to simplify and study the big shapes and dominant darks and shadows. It also greatly speeds up the painting process which is important for alla prima painting.

2. Paint the darks first and don't be afraid if they are too dark or bigger than necessary. This will all be edited as the painting progresses. This also helps you be aware of not only the positive but also the negative shapes which improves accuracy. By painting the darks a little bigger than they actually are you don't lose them when you start cutting into them as you apply lighter values. Think of your darks as the sculptor's stone that must be chipped away to reveal the image.

3. As you refine the painting, use smaller and smaller brushes but always try to use the largest brush possible to achieve the effect. This really helps you avoid getting caught up in the details too soon and keeps the painting moving along at a quicker pace.

4. Think in terms of economy of line throughout the painting. That is, use as few strokes as possible to lay in values and shapes. This helps you to more carefully consider what you're trying to achieve. Don't piddlle around making meaningless strokes just to see what happens, but make each stroke accomplish something. Ironically taking a little extra time considering each stroke and placing it deliberately will speed up the painting process. It's not a matter of painting fast but painting efficiently. This also increases loose quality and avoids that overworked look.

My first art instructor told me that you should know why you apply every single stroke of a painting. I did not believe this was possible but with experience I realized how important this principle is. It will give you immense confidence when you master this approach. I've demonstrated it on more than one occassion by completeing a painting in 50 stokes or less. Would that make a good demonstraion painting? Let. me know if you would like a demo like that.

PLEASE COMMENT AND LET ME KNOW IF YOU PREFER SHORT VIDEOS LIKE THIS ONE OR LONGER VIDEOS COVERING A LOT MORE MATERIAL.

Links: https://mmahon.com;   / mikemahonfineartist  

Music: Wallpaper by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song...
License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license