Portrait commission for a lovely friend

Portrait of Ezra

Last year I had the pleasure of working on my first traditional portrait for a lovely friend. Over the years I have drawn and doodled many faces of unwitting sitters – if you sat near me in a lecture or on the train, the reason I may have been peering curiously at you was to capture your expression! I’ve also painted many figures in scenes, from travel photos, but as these tend to be more abstracted with little detail, I find this very different from painting a traditional close-up portrait. Now, when I say “traditional”, I still intend to keep my own style and I still primarily use acrylics for my work.

The result of several months worth of sketches and a painting later, I came up with the following painting of little Ezra. I was so nervous to create an image of someone I knew very well for fear of not doing him justice. Overall, I’m happy with the results, but I can say it was definitely a learning curve! Proportions are so important to get right in portraiture, and I did resort to various different methods to get the finish I wanted.

I’m not entirely happy with the colour palette, but I am excited to be starting a new online course on colour mixing soon, which I’m looking forward to. Sometimes the colours I envision either don’t quite look right on paper, or the colours are “correct” but something about the overall tone and feel comes across far more twee and cute than I intended.