How I paint portraits like a sculptor

You're probably really intimidated by painting portraits this way, where you block in the whole head first, almost like it's a sphere, and then slowly sculpt the features out of it. Because when you first see somebody paint like this, it can feel messy, there's wet paint everywhere, nothing's outlined, and it almost feels like there's no way it should work. And I completely understand that fear. But learning to think about the head this way is one of the biggest shifts you can make as a portrait painter. Because once you stop thinking about painting eyes, nose, and mouth, and start thinking about sculpting form and light, portrait painting starts making so much more sense. Your values improve, your likeness improves, your portraits start feeling solid and three-dimensional instead of feeling flat. So stick with me to the end of this video, and I promise by the end you'll feel a lot more comfortable painting this way, and you're going to understand why so many other portrait painters think this way. Alright, if you're new to the channel, welcome to Paint Coach. My name's Chris Fornitero, and I'm here to help you get better at oil painting faster. Now the full tutorial that I'm going to be walking you through here is available inside Paint Coach Studio along with hundreds of other tutorials. If you want to try it free for seven days, I'll put a link to it in the description of this video. So the first thing I'm doing here is simplifying the head as much as possible. I'm not thinking about details yet. I'm thinking about the head almost like it's an egg, or a sphere. There's a light side, and there's a shadowed side. That's it. So at the start, my goal is to establish the big turn of the form. Where is the light coming from? What side is facing the light? What side is turning away from it? How does the head sit in space? Those are questions I'm trying to answer first. Now another thing people notice right away is how thin the paint is at the start. And I think this surprises people because they associate oil painting with thick paint. But early on, I don't want thick paint. I want it to be flexible. I almost want it to be a soupy mix. I always say at the beginning of the painting, you are pushing the paint. By the end, you are applying it like a sticker. I want to be able to constantly adjust things. So the paint here is very thin and fluid. Not transparent like watercolor, but kind of a loose, soupy consistency. And this helps in a few really important ways. First, it allows me to blend wet into wet paint very easily. I can soften transitions. I can push edges around and merge shapes together. Second, it keeps the painting adjustable. Nothing feels locked in yet. And that's important because the beginning of the painting is really just problem solving. You're searching for the form. You're feeling your way through it. And another advantage of thin paint is that it lets me build thicker paint on top later. People always ask, do you let it dry first? No. I paint right into the wet paint because the lower layers are thin enough that thicker paint can sit on top of them without turning into mud. That's a huge part of why this process works. Now this is actually the core idea of the whole video here. Thinking like a sculptor. Imagine somebody handed you a giant lump of clay and told you to sculpt a portrait. You wouldn't immediately carve eyelashes into it. You'd first create a simple head shape. A rough oval, sphere, a big mass. That's exactly what I'm doing here with the paint. I'm building the simple mass of the head first. And then I start sculpting into it. Because what does a sculptor do after the big form is established? They push inward. They carve inward. They create depth. And those recessed areas are usually your darker values. Now one thing I'm paying close attention to in the shadows is reflected light. And reflected light is one of those things that suddenly makes forms feel alive. Because shadows are rarely just flat darkness. They usually contain subtle light bouncing back into them. You see this all the time if you paint simple objects like fruit. Like an apple sitting on a table. Near the bottom of the shadow side, you'll often get soft reflected light bouncing upward from the surface underneath. The head works the exact same way. So down here along the jawline and lower shadow areas, I start noticing this reflected light bouncing into the shadowed side. And because all the paint is still wet, I can softly work that reflected light into the dark passages. That's another reason I love painting wet into wet. It allows for subtle transitions. You can gradually shift values without creating hard edges everywhere. And form usually needs softness. Most forms don't turn abruptly. They gradually roll from light into shadow. Now as I start building the nose, you can really see how important value is. Because the nose is basically just a series of planes turning in light. One side catches direct light. The bridge turns slightly away. The far side falls deeper into shadow. And once those value relationships are correct, the structure of the nose starts appearing naturally. This is why I think learning value is so far more important than memorizing how to paint features. Once you understand form and value, you can paint almost anything. You stop relying on symbols and start relying on observation. Once the larger structure feels believable, placing the features becomes dramatically easier. Take the eyebrows for example. The eyebrows are just hair wrapping around the brow ridge. So if the brow ridge doesn't exist first, the eyebrows usually feel unnatural. Same thing with the mouth. The mouth wraps around the cylinder form of the muzzle area of the face. So before I fully render the lips, I first want that underlying structure working. And another important thing to notice is that I'm constantly adjusting everything. I'm never fully finishing one area before moving on forever. Because every new shape changes how I see the rest of the painting. I lighten one area and suddenly another area feels too dark. I sharpen one edge and suddenly another edge feels too sharp. Painting is constant comparison. You're always adjusting relationships. Now when I moved into the eyes, the sculptural thinking becomes incredibly important. Because the eyes sit inside sockets. They're receded back into the skull. I think one of the biggest beginner mistakes is making the eyes too bright and too crisp. Especially the whites of the eyes. People paint them pure white all the time. But the eyes are usually partially sitting underneath the brow ridge in shadow. So the whites of the eyes are usually much softer and darker than people think. And you can already see the eyes starting to work here before I even fully add the whites. Just getting the dark eyelash line, the iris shape, the placement within the socket. That already communicates so much. And because the surrounding paint is still wet, the eyes naturally soften into the face instead of looking cut out. I think one reason people avoid painting this way is because it feels unpredictable. You can't fully plan everything. You have to react the painting constantly. You have to stay flexible. And beginners usually want certainty. They want formulas. They want someone to tell them, here's exactly how to paint an eye. But painting doesn't really work that way. Portrait painting is about relationships. Relationships of value, color, edges, and form. And those relationships constantly shift as the painting develops. So learning to stay flexible is one of the most important skills you can develop. As I continue moving forward in the face, I'm really just sculpting with value. I'm asking simple questions constantly. Does this area need more light? Does this plane need to turn more toward the light? Does this edge need to soften? Do I need to flatten this area? Do I need to push this section back? And instead of physically moving clay around, I'm using light and dark to communicate those changes. That's really what painting form is. Creating the illusion of three-dimensional structure through value relationships. And once you start thinking this way, portrait painting becomes far less intimidating because you stop trying to memorize features. You start understanding structure. Now, is this the only way to paint portraits? Of course not. There are amazing painters working in all kinds of different approaches. But I do think learning to think sculpturally gives you a much stronger understanding of the face. And the better you understand form, the higher your ceiling becomes as a painter. Your portraits start feeling more solid, more believable, more dimensional, and painting becomes more enjoyable too. Because instead of copying symbols, you feel like you're building the face onto the canvas. You feel like you're sculpting it into existence. And once that clicks, portrait painting starts making a whole lot more sense. Now, if you want to watch this full tutorial along with hundreds, other painting lessons by me, you can check it out on Paint Coach Studio. I'll put a link to it in the description below. All right. I'm Chris Fornitero. You're telling you to go get painting.