I spent the last week working on the final version of Lise’s portrait. I did 2 studies of Lise on watercolour paper and finally decided to put it on canvas as a sepia painting. Well, the final version took me more than a week to complete and I realized why portrait painting is so difficult. There is a very fine line between light and dark and it is quite difficult to decide just when to stop working the painting and when the rounding and shading is good enough. For a landscape painting I can exercise my artistic freedom, but for a portrait the painting must look exactly like the person. The painter therefore has limited freedom of expression. Colour may change, but contour, shape and shading must all stay realistic and true to your model.
Anyway, the final version is presented below. I think I managed OK for my first portrait. It feels a little too “white”, but the real painting has character and is a good representation of Lise. I will probably do portraits again, but will move on to something else for now. Portraits are a lot of work.
Final portrait of Lise (acrylic on canvas)
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