Portrait art is primarily consists of painting, drawing and photography. Photography is more of a combination of technical know-how on the equipments and one’s creativity in composition.

Drawing is the often describe as the most fundamental, and portrait painting is much more difficult to acquire.

In a concise explanation, I feel that portrait art attribute to a common purpose.. that is, achieving the goal of capturing likeness to the actual person in life.

Cameras can capture likeness easily, but a real portrait painting requires patience and good understanding, and an eye for creativity composition that might come through the brush or pencil.

Since my last post on portrait drawing, I still cannot figure out what is the best practice to accomplish a good portrait art, specifically on paintings and drawings.

Is there any secrets to achieve good portrait painting?

Is techniques or choice of medium contribute to the best learning method?

Or practice makes perfect?

Below sharing some tips for best practices on learning basic portrait drawing and paintings. I do hope there will be useful for every beginners in portrait art.

1. Always keep a small sketch book and start drawing from life subject. This is so simple, isn’t it? Well, I hardly do that when it comes to real practice in public places. I did bring along 2 sketch books in this traveling trip, however, I use it more often as a jotter book than to seriously learn drawings on life subjects.
2. Drawing from life helps to learn how to analyze reality and put it on the page. Its time to change and seriously put in some effort to draw more. Portrait outlines are the basic, the important aspect to describe its form is by determining the light and shade. Analyze and emphasize on light source for shadows and darkness.
3. Do not rush to finish the portrait art, but given ample time for detailed observation. Eventually, what is drawn or painted is translated through your brain. Focus on proportion of drawing a typical adult head. Or perhaps, start drawing basic shape on portrait features, such as nose, ears, mouth. Eyes are very difficult to draw, I hope to have more practice on this area.
4. Learn through trial and errors. “Experience is the best teacher”. Its an old sayings.. “learn from mistakes”, “never too old to learn”, and “learning never ends”. Accuracy is important. Drawing off by the slightest bit just won’t look right. Using grids as an aid helps to minimized errors and more accurate drawings.
5. Drawing is the most fundamental. Capturing the essence of the subject is far more crucial to a powerful and successful portrait than mere details, medium, and techniques. Painting is much more difficult, you have to know what color you are seeing when you’re painting. For drawing portrait, the right shading and proportionality help to determine the value and likeness, respectively. Hue and color in painting comes latter.
6. Study of body anatomy; understand what bones and muscles are behind the skin, how big they are, what their shape is. Do you know even the great master artist, Vincent van Gogh, painted a human skull and skeleton in an anatomy class while he was studying art?

There is no shortcuts for learning portrait drawing or paintings. Will I practice hard on what I have preached?  We shall see next week post..

My recent visits to the ancient capital of Luang Prabang in Laos, has vastly widen my knowledge with deep impression on Buddha portrait paintings. I have captured a few snapshots of their Buddha portrait artwork. And was surprise to learn about these particular paintings, has taken into many creative form of portrait art on different painting surfaces.

Literally, “Luang Prabang”, the city located at the central of Laos’ northern region, is referred as “Royal Buddha Image”. As their city being named, so does their Buddha portrait paintings selling in every art gallery, as well as the famous night market stalls.

One of the portrait paintings I have observed was using pointillism technique, emphasize on groupings of very small dots or dashes of color ‘pointed’ on canvas.

Conceptually, pointillism artwork has some similarity in pixelation of computer graphics in modern days. As opposed to the conventional painting strokes by brushes, dots are ‘pointed’ instead. It is categorized as the Neo-Impressionism painting, evolving in the late 1880s.

Famous paintings for pointillism include Vincent van Gogh, on “Self Portrait, 1887” and the American photorealism artist, Chuck Close, on pixelated portrait painting “Lucas (1986 – 1987)”.

You are able to see below, a collected series of Buddha portrait paintings from Luang Prabang. Two sets using pointillism technique, with slight variant in using only mono color; it uses pen with black color ink. A few closed-up view of the pictures will be able to give you an idea on all this “groupings of very small dots”.

Beside portrait pointillism, their Buddha portrait artwork has also ranged from wood carving and sculpture to acrylic portrait paintings on paper. And include, Buddha portrait drawings on the surfaces of sea shells, turtle shells, round pebbles and stencil paper stamping.

PS: My 3-days bus journey from SaPa to Luang Prabang, was worth traveling, its a long haul though.

Portrait painting serve the purpose of recording an outward appearance of an individual, mainly capturing the facial expression that is able to make oneself recognizable to the real person, at a particular moment in his/her life. Before photography was invented, family members from the noble family, wealthy people, officials, merchants would have their portrait painted. During that time, or the early centuries, artists were employed by all these affluent people. There do not have any choice: their position obliged them to paint what was demanded of them.

In the next following paragraphs, you will be reading different types of portrait paintings that have been practiced traditionally by master artists. You may see some of the illustrations below.

1. Profile portrait focused attention on the outline of the face without distracting you, as the viewer, with any particular expression. Side view is used, instead of other angle facing. It was to emphasized one’s authority and nobility, such as those ancient medals, coins or currency notes which you have seen. See illustration 1.1, The Liberty Head nickel

2. Frontal full view portrait painting during 15^th century, appears mostly for godly figures, myth and heroes, highly worshiped immortals. Theses rare portraits with only frontal view makes an important association between the model and God and eternity.

3. Three-quarter portrait is somewhere in-between, is considered better suited to illustrating the transitory nature of man. It allow the artist to play with nuance o expression. It is less commonly seen these days, that one will preferred three-quarter portrait.

4. Bust-Length portrait shows a person from the shoulders up. You will not see their hands with the portrait frame. See illustration 1.2, Portrait of Camille Pissarro

5. As compared to half-length portrait, you will see an individual who is either sitting on a chair or standing. Artist will paint any area from waist level onwards. Quite often, with their hands cross-folded or resting on the arm of the chair. One of the most popular half-length portrait is The Mona Lisa, painting by Leonardo da Vince.

6. Full-length portrait shows the subject standing up. Portrait of this kind were developed in the 16^th century. Such a pose is particularly aristocratic, majestic-looking, or even regal, underlining the social standing of the person. At times, the artist will include the surrounding landscape. This kind of paintings depict height of elegance and supremacy.

7. Self-portrait during the early days referred to artist who paint himself with the help of a mirror. It is stand-alone as works of art. The best artist in the late 19^th century, who self-portrait himself was none other than Vincent van Gogh. Over 30 pieces of his work consist of him. See illustration 1.3, Self-Portrait, Vincent van Gogh

8. State portrait is generally an official portrait, highlighting the social position of an individual and power he holds. See illustration 1.4, The Emperor Napoleon

9. Group portrait consist of 2 or more figures posing together, showing a significance of togetherness or unity. It is becoming popular these days that group portrait, including wedding couple, friends and family portrait, children portrait, or even with their pets, has been reproduce from photograph.

10. Photo portrait, as the term speak for itself. In this context, we are referring to painting directly from your photograph. It is different from portrait photography, where a mechanical device is involved, including digital editing from your computer. The uniqueness of photo portrait is capable of combining figures from different photographs and combine into one handmade paintings. Physical appearance of the model is not necessary. It is contemporary, yet preserving traditionalism.

Illustration 1.1, The Liberty Head nickel Image Credit: Flick	Illustration 1.2, Portrait of Camille Pissarro Image Credit: Wikipedia
	Illustration 1.4, The Emperor Napoleon Image Credit: Wikipedia

Vincent Van Gogh painted his portrait with a reddish beard, quite often with a yellow straw hat and pipe. Most of his portrait paintings can be found between 1886 ~ 1889, including “Skull with Burning Cigarette”; the skull can be seen as van Gogh’s first self-portrait. Have you ever wonder why van Gogh painted his portrait?

His portrait painting started when he moved on from Antwerp to Paris in February 27, 1886, to live with his brother Theo. It was his desire to seek for an improvement of himself by choosing to live in Paris and forget the everyday feuding of the village. Beside having this choice of living in a populous city, he became more self-conscious about his outer appearance. This could be a reason why he painted himself.

Back then, Van Gogh uses the reflection of his mirror, to reproduce his face. He painted over 40 pieces of his portrait works in his life time, making himself the most intellectually recognized portrait artist of his time. Perhaps another reasons for this obsession, could probably trying to figure out who he was and what is place in the world was.

Despite having many of his painting works, most were not appreciated or being sold. As such, he did not have sufficient finance to support his enthusiasm on improving portrait painting skill. No money to pay the posing model, and not many people commissioning him to do portrait paintings. This was also a reason why he painted himself.

In January 1889, Arles, he painted himself with bandaged ear. It was this few paintings that clearly portrait himself without his beard. Interestingly, he chose to paint than to look at the mirror of how he look like with this bandage. Possibly never believe that mirror image was more true than his hand painted artwork.

Theses days portrait paintings have change drastically, who else will paint himself by using the reflection of mirror? Most will just use their existing photograph to reproduce them self, be it in the medium of pencil, watercolor or oil painting.

Van Gogh Self-Portrait with Grey Felt Hat (1886-87) | Image Credit to Wikipedia