How I PAINT a REALISTIC PORTRAIT in OILS - My favourite portrait yet!

In this short video, we're going to be painting this portrait, and I'm going to walk you through some of my favorite techniques. Roll that intro. Hi there, and welcome to the studio. My name's Andrew, and it's a pleasure to have your company here once again. Now, when I say here, you might not recognize where I am. I'm in a brand new studio. I've moved location, and now I've actually separated the studio into two different spaces. So, welcome to the drawing room. Now, this was a pool room at some stage. The previous owners were playing pool up here. I'm not much of a pool player, but that is a really good layout space. Now, I've got my old drawing board over there, so I'm gearing up for some more sketch endeavor videos. But while I'm building the new studio and getting everything set up down there, I thought it was high time I actually brought you a painting video, so I didn't make you wait so long this time. So now, what I want to do is share with you in this video some of my favorite portrait painting techniques. Now, here's my subject. This is Tuhoe. Tuhoe's a really striking looking gentleman, and he came to see me down at my old studio when I lived at the bottom of the South Island here in New Zealand. Now, Tuhoe is an extraordinary guy. You might recognize him. He had an incredibly checkered and tumultuous past that he's since walked away from. He was an ex-gang leader. He's turned his life around now completely, and now he's a force for good. Now, the subjects that I gravitate towards as an artist are those people that their faces seem to tell a story. Without them having to open their mouths and say a word, you can see the life just written on their faces. And Tuhoe has got a striking face. Now, he's got one of those characteristic Maori tattoos, otherwise known as a moko. And when I first met Tuhoe, he actually reminded me of one of my favorite artist's paintings. You see, there's a bit of a New Zealand icon here, and one of my favorite portrait painters of all time, and that's Charles F. Goldie. Really amazing traditional oil painting, but really inspiring subjects, but also the technical approach was just off the charts. Every time I've seen a Goldie original in the flesh, and there are several here in New Zealand hanging in museums, they're just amazing. You can feel the life in the skin. It's something to behold. And what I wanted to do with this painting is maybe just tap into a little bit of that character. Now, unfortunately, Goldie's not around anymore to pick his brain as to how he painted his portraits, but I was thinking it must have been a pretty traditional palette that he was using without the aid of modern pigments. So I've shifted my palette here, and this time I'm using Rublev oil colors. Now, again, before we get underway, if you ever want to know what materials I'm using, then simply click those links in the description down below. I've listed all the paints that I'm using, as well as my brushes and mediums. So now that we're familiar with the subject and the inspiration, let's jump into the studio and paint a portrait. I've got some pretty good reference material here for this painting. So here with a washed, toned Belgian linen stretcher at about 16 by 20, I begin to make my initial construction lines using a synthetic pointed round and a combination of burnt umber and quinacridone magenta. Now, there's just a hint of medium on the end of my brush. I use some calipers to get pretty close to a circle, and then I find the brow ridge, which cuts through the equator of that circle, making a sphere. And then from here, it becomes relatively straightforward to place the eyes, the nose, and the mouth. I go into much more detail on how to do this in the full version of the tutorial, and you'll find that in the description box down below. I firm up some of these marks with much heavier brushwork and then rub away some of those lighter construction lines using just a little bit of medium and a clean rag. Now that our figure is firmly established within the canvas, I go ahead and start with the background using a one-inch Tisch dagger brush and a loose assortment of bold brush marks. I generally tend to go for an off-green, slightly blue color behind portraits that have got a lot of red skin notes. I'm always playing complementary opposites off against one another. So if we have some red rich skin tones with lots of warmth coming through, then generally it looks pretty good compared to green and blue, the opposite side of the color wheel. But I also play down the background color. Notice how it's really muted. This will really help the skin tones and the light on the face really stand out proud amongst all this loose muted brushwork. Now Tuhoe is wearing a black t-shirt, but I thought this might be a bit boring for a traditional portrait, so I decided to change the neckline slightly and have a little cut appear here for maybe some buttons or a slight collar. I don't want too much detail to take place in the shirt or even in the background because it might draw attention away from the face. I begin to map in some of these skin tones with a broad Tisch Dagger brush and start working into those shadows, a combination of burnt umber and some burnt sienna. I really enjoy that sculptural effect given by the ambient glow coming through the studio windows. We've got some really nice soft shadows with some deeper tone and then some really beautiful gentle highlights. There's nothing too harsh about this portrait. Ordinarily I'd use two different types of light, a very strong bright directional light to get some crisp edges and then balance this out with a cooler ambient light, normally natural light. But here I felt the light coming in through the window was just perfect. Now to get a bit of a cool glow off some of these hairs on the shadow portion, I'm mixing in some ultramarine blue and burnt umber and brushing this through in the direction that the hair is traveling and blending it slightly with that background and surrounding skin tones. I'll be able to tease out individual strands of hair and even have some real minute detail given by a triple zero rigor or a pointed round for those hairs that are standing proud in the light. But what we must do first is establish a general base, just a nice loose assortment of brush marks, try to achieve a likeness, establish a three-dimensional form and then worry about all the surface details. And in this portrait there's going to be a bunch of detail. Now here in my reference material it doesn't show a lot of information about what the hair is doing so I did use some artistic license and borrowed from some other angles that I was able to capture on the day. I use a half inch Tisch dagger to get some finer lines around the eyes and establish some character. But if this provides too much texture I can always tamp those brush marks back down again with a synthetic filbert brush. Now some of these synthetic filberts are great for those precise marks like here where the skin is reflecting some of that ambient light following the contours of the wrinkles in Tuhoe's forehead and areas around the eyes. Just a little bit of that cool glow pulls some of these areas forward and makes the form appear much more three-dimensional. Now don't get me wrong I love using my Blue Ridge oil paint but here the Rublev has been a nice little deviation from the norm. I decided though that I needed some higher key colors like turquoise phthalo and quinacridone crimson. These two colors are perfect for the tattoos and I want something that's nice and transparent and very thin to work into some of those surrounding brush marks. The turquoise and the crimson come together to make a very dark tone and then I come back and rework some of these colors in with the surrounding marks deepening the tone wherever I have a recess or a crevice that's in shadow. In some of the areas of tattoo that's facing that ambient light I allow a bit more yellow to come through and even mix in a touch of yellow ochre lifting the tone slightly with lead white. Now it was really important that I got this tattoo accurate and it was a bit of a challenge at first. I had to go slowly and steadily just one line at a time and just make sure it hugs the three-dimensional form just right and it appears in the right location of the face. This tattoo after all is individual and unique to Tuhoe and these synthetic filberts are great for these precise marks and have helped a lot with this technique. Now everything is relatively thin here in application so far. I may come back later with some thicker brush marks to bring out more texture, catch more light and reflect that back to the viewer. It just so happens that thinner paint tends to be better for some darker areas in our painting but that thick impasto really does reflect more light so we can use a physical nature of the paint to drive the three-dimensionality within our portrait. Now because I'm working wet and wet it is lifting the paint ever so slightly and the oleo gel is giving me much more working time than I would have with liquid. It means I can achieve a much more painterly effect and have an extended window to apply this brushwork. The trick to getting clean lines though is to have a couple of different brushes on the go and to mix up continually fresh paint and not try to expect the same brush to travel so far over the canvas. Otherwise what we start to do is pick up surrounding colors and we end up with a muddier result. So keeping that precision is key by reloading the brush continually and making sure that we just go one stroke at a time. Now here with Tuhoe's mustache and beard I begin to mark in some of those deeper shadows that appear between the hairs and then start to paint in the tattoo just below that lower lip. There's a really nice reflection of some of that ambient light glowing off the lower lip here where it forms a shelf facing upwards and there'll be a nice highlight that occurs along this lead edge and similarly the upper eyelids are going to get one of these brighter highlights applied with just the end of a synthetic filbert brush. I apply some finer marks with a synthetic pointed round dropping the tone in the corner of the eye and then working in the whites of the eye and notice here how the white of the eye is not necessarily white. It's a cool gray. I've toned things down here much much more. This will allow some of the brighter tones like a little flash of sparkle maybe along the lower eyelid here to stand out and reflect more of that light. It's all about our tone at the end of the day. Now you may have heard the old saying paint what you see not what you know. Well here is a perfect example of that because we know the whites of the eye are white but we don't really see them appear that way do we? No what actually shows up as brighter white are those little brilliant sparkles that appear in the eye and add that touch of life. Now with an older filbert synthetic brush one that's really splayed apart I apply this stippling technique to the front of the face just as the paint starts to go off and set up a bit of a surface tack. I go in and apply some of these marks and these are little individual reflections coming off some of the pores into my skin and it just adds another layer and another level to the realism here. I then take a very small synthetic pointed round and work in some individual creases in the lower lip. Now sometimes I'll use a synthetic ivory dagger this is a great brush in conjunction with some of those synthetic pointed rounds I can achieve quite a high level of detail but I'm pretty strategic with my detail marks. I'll only detail areas of the painting where the light is shining across the surface or areas I want the viewer to and I enjoy that aesthetic of the way a painting just fades away into a mess of abstract looking brushwork towards the periphery of the painting. Now with these strands of silver hair the dagger brush is perfect for this. I have two different tones going at once a darker gray for some of those shadow areas and this lighter gray as the hair approaches the light coming in through the window. Now I've mixed more and more lead white coming through and I have a touch of ultramarine blue in the mix to cool things down. I'll then go back and work between some of these hairs with a much darker tone where that t-shirt is showing through. It's all about getting variety in the types of silver that we have here and once I've got a nice base established I'll come back in with some brighter marks to lift out some individual hairs and I find that painting a realistic portrait is more about strategy and methodology than anything else. It's about getting everything in relatively the right sequence so that we're in control every step of the process and we gradually work our way and build up to that final detail. Now I decided to go back and revisit the background. As it dried it went quite dull and matte where some of the oil had sunken into that background layer. It's not too much of a problem though. A lot of this could be fixed with a coat of retouch varnish or even a final varnish layer but here I wanted to deepen everything down drop the tone a bit more to give that appearance that Tuhoy was emerging out of the shadow stepping into the light. I also wanted to add to that effect where I had some darker tones towards the top of the painting fading into a lighter green as we approached Tuhoy's shoulders and then again that contrast is in play here with the darker shirt against a lighter background. And you'll notice in my paintings that generally I'm playing off these tonal differences. Dark against light, light against dark. Like here with some of these silver hairs against a darker background. It all comes down to contrast and tones at the end of the day. An old frayed bristle dagger brush is fantastic for painting hair. It's quite time consuming to paint every individual strand of hair and often when we try to do this it doesn't actually look that realistic. So we want to have some indication of texture of the hair and a nice assortment of some random marks and then come back and work in some strategic little lines here and there with either an ivory rigger or a synthetic pointed round. Not only does this save a lot of time working in this way and also an added benefit is having it look more realistic but there's something interesting that goes on in the viewer's brain when looking at a painting that's detailed with these techniques. See here just a few strategically placed fine details will end up forming enough information for the rest of the gaps of that information to be filled in in the viewer's mind. So just a few little bits here and there make the entire painting appear as if it's detailed when in actual fact there's only a select bit of detail in various strategic locations and again this is best reserved for those areas that are in the light like here with these silver hairs that are contrasted against that background. Now to get a really nice fine line I love these ivory riggers. You have to go back and continually reload that brush though. Just the ends of those fibers are loaded with paint and a couple of smooth strokes following the same path can make a really nice fine line but there's only so far that we can go with it and if we press too hard we kind of lose that effect so just the ends of those bristles is great for that hair technique. I then apply a fine bit of glazing to drop the tone in some of the shattered portions of Tuhoe's face and this is just a tiny bit of pigment suspended in medium just dry brushed over the surface. This was by far one of the most enjoyable portraits that I've ever painted and I really look forward to the opportunity of painting Tuhoe again. Well I really hope that you've enjoyed this video and you've come away with some new techniques and maybe a few new ideas to apply to your next painting. I just want to take a quick minute and say a huge shout out and a thank you to Tuhoe for posing for this painting. Thank you so much for coming down to the studio my friend, spending that time with me. I always really enjoy our conversations. Now I first met Tuhoe in Queenstown several years ago and he was selling his book down at the marina and I bought a copy and I could hardly put it down. Ultimately it was a story of redemption. This is really a modern day example of somebody going from soul to Paul and it was incredibly inspiring. Yes very challenging in the beginning but ultimately a story of redemption. Taking something that was such a grotesque negative and turning it into an ultimate positive. So if you want to check that out then I'll put a link to that down in the description down below as well as a link to a film that Tuhoe starred in called Day Trip and that was pretty cool to see as well. Now again if you want to find out even more about oil painting techniques then make sure you click that link in the description down below. It's the top one right there and you can find out more about my portrait painting workshop. Now this is six different demonstrations both male and female. A variety of techniques, a variety of skin types. There's all kinds of things that we have to talk about so make sure you check that out. Click that link in the description down below if you want to take your portrait painting even further. Thank you so much for spending this time with me here in the studio. If you want to go and follow me on social media those links are down below as well. I'm on Instagram and Facebook but of course most important make sure you subscribe through my website at andrewtichler.com. I'm in regular touch with my subscribers there and you can also find me on Patreon. Again all those links down below. Now I'm going to see you again very very soon with even more painting techniques and hopefully be coming to you from a brand new studio Until then, happy painting!