My finished portrait painting of Christelle (extra close-up)
This year I completed what I would consider is my best portrait painting so far. I finished a realistic portrait of an ex coworker and friend of mine, Christelle.
Christelle is from France, and she is interested in areas of spirituality, mindfulness, present-moment-awareness, environmental issues, animals, health & fitness such as yoga and meditation.
Before completing this portrait of Christelle, I studied and completed an online course called ‘Essentials of Realism’ with Jonathan Hardesty from the website schoolism.com
During the course I learned about how Jon was taught about painting realism from analysis of master studies from the masters of fine art both recent and old.
The course was broken down into various stages such as: proportion, value, colour, comparison, observation, edges, and temperature. And Jon revealed many useful hints, tips and advice on painting the studies either digitally or traditionally, as he is both a traditional and digital artist himself.
My assignment 8/9 for the course 'Essentials of Realism'. (my painting on the right)
I learned a ton from studying all of his video lessons and one-on-one student video feedback. I even learned many useful and interesting techniques and things about some of my favourite artists, which Jon broke down and dissected.
Going Digital
My portrait of Christelle is a digital portrait. Now for those of you who don't know, the same knowledge and method to drawing and painting is mostly applied to drawing and painting digitally. Perhaps I can explain this in further detail in a future post?
Digital is more forgiving with mistakes, and you can save multiple versions of your work. But essentially if you can't draw and paint traditionally, you can't do it digitally.
On this course we had a choice which way to go, and in an earlier lesson I chose tradtional drawing. But for this final portrait I chose digital.
70 + hours of work
Just to put things in perspective, my portrait of Christelle took me 70+ hours to complete. I had to return multiple times over the course of a few weeks as I wrestled with graveyard shifts as a bar tender here in the casino in the Gold Coast, Australia.
For all those who have endured graveyard shifts over a period of weeks and months, you know what I'm getting at here!
So below I will show you some of the stages, my works-in-progress of the portrait up to the finished piece!
Christelle Langlet wip 1
In this early sketching stage I aimed at getting the main shapes, composition and likeness down early.
Wip 2 - the first colour pass
The second phase of my portrait, the first colour pass. In this stage I aimed at getting the main colours down.
Wip 3 - developing colour and focusing on the imaginary elements
At this stage I was getting closer to the finished painting. having got much of the colours and proportions complete for Christelle, I chose to focus on detailing some of the imaginary elements, decorating the painting and leading the eye through composition.
The idea behind this was appreciation for nature and present-moment awareness. At a time which is fast looking like something out of a dystopian future novel, we are becoming more and more locked into technology and forgetting to appreciate the amazing world around us.
Wip 4 - The playful element, two butterfly's as the focal point.
Getting much closer to finishing, I started working on detailing the focal point of the painting, which Is Christelle's eyes leading to the two butterfly's. Again how often do we pay attention to the insects, the birds, the colours, sites, sounds and life around us? What can we benefit form it if we do? Wonder, gratitude, awe, respect, appreciation, inspiration.
The finished painting close-up
The finished portrait of Christelle (full size).
The Finished Painting.
This is my finished portrait painting of Christelle with a blurred out background behind it so the full sized image can be viewed easily online.
The original photo reference of Christelle.
Credit goes to @edisonwatchco for his excellent photo of Christelle.
As you can see from the original photo, I chose to intensify the colours in my portrait of Christelle, a technique I learned from the course 'Essentials of Realism' and I also added the other elements surrounding her which were not in the original photo.
I intend on completing some more digital portraits in the near future. I am currently working on one as a gift for my Scottish friend for his Birthday. And soon I would like to try portraits using oil paints!
Now I must practice!
Thank you steemers for reading, upvoting and commenting! It all makes a difference and inspires me to keep making posts. If you have any questions, please ask! :)
Beautiful painting, you did great job here. Well done!
Thank yo very much! :)
looks good.. I also do digital paintings, but they look more realistic and boring :D ...the work on hair is great :)
@marty-arts thank you! Cool! I will check out your work. :)
thanks :)
Really great work and interesting explanation. You got our follow.
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This is exquisite. I love the ways in which you intensified and added vibrance to her eyes - they are positively smoldering with energy in your painting. Interesting discussion about the online class, the painting you shared for the exercise in that class is really awesome!
Much love - Carl
Hello Carl, thank you for the thoughtful comments, they made me smile! Both of those paintings did take me a long time. The portrait of the girl (the teacher's daughter) also took many visits, and I think I managed to finish it after about 60 hours.
Thanks you
Thank you for commenting :)
Your works are beautiful and near perfection. Well done!
Oh, I especially love the eye colours using two butterflies as the focal point gave Christabelle. She is a beauty to behold herself. Great job!
@royalrose thank you for the kind comments. It is far from 'perfect' but I did feel like I really improved with this piece! And yes she is beautiful inside and out.
amazing !
It is so real and beautiful. THUMBS UP !!
Thank you @komal for the kind comment! Very much appreciated! :)
:) appreciation is what an artist yearn for ::)
Agreed! :)
te quedo hermoso :)
Wow! Very beautifull...
Thank you :)
I think my favorite part of your painting is the blue and yellow highlights on the hair. Amazing work!
Interesting that you have noticed and like the hair the most! I appreciate the comment, thank you :)
Hello, great work, i liked your post and reward it with upvote.
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