My project in Watercolor Portraits: Capture a Model's Personality course

My project in Watercolor Portraits: Capture a Model's Personality course

This is the final project of my course, if you like this portrait you can easily follow every step of my process while I'm painting it: find the course HERE
Domestika has put together the best production team I could imagine in order to capture my process and tell you many useful concepts!
Here I'm showing some progress shots of the project so that you can have an idea of what you can experience when you are painting a portrait in watercolor.

I prefer to draw construction lines in watercolor using a thin brush in order to use the same medium in the entire process, I strongly recommend not to use a pencil: we draw with paint washes. With a mop I establish light and shadow areas.

With a medium size round tip brush I define the under-painting in monochrome washes, often using a wet on wet technique. If these terms are familiar to you, well you are in the right place, and if you don't understand them you will easily start using them yourself following my course!

Choosing a model is half the work, getting to know her/him a little more is what really adds value to your portrait. I prefer to work with people I know and I love to create an easy and friendly atmosphere so that they can feel safe and relaxed. If we all enjoy the process the final painting will be a success: an experience to be remembered.

Adding detail and working on the face features is the most rewarding part. Remember that it comes last because we need to have the general masses on paper first, the volumes of the different planes of the head. A good resemblance starts there and only gets accentuated when we add color and details.

I always suggest to focus on what we want to portray, so here I organize my priorities thinking on where the eye of the observer will land once the painting is complete. It's good to leave something to the imagination!

My final painting is framed so that it will last for centuries to come. If you want to see more of my work follow me here and on instagram