Even if you’ve never heard of Michael Deas, you’ve probably seen his work. He’s painted numerous portrait covers for Time Magazine, including Ben Franklin, Abraham Lincoln, and Thomas Jefferson. In an article published today in the Times-Picayune, Deas shares his thoughts on painting, lighting, and his new studio.
The Guardian’s Simon Callow provides an insightful review of Laura Cumming’s “A Face to the World” — a book providing a historical look at self portraiture in paintings.
Over at abduzeedo.com, Kyle Lambert provides both a step-by-step and video tutorial showing the creation of his portrait of Barack Obama. The portrait is created with Photoshop and a Wacom tablet. This example of expressive digital portraiture goes well beyond the application of photoshop filters or the smearing of pixels, and the result shows it.
London-based artist Brian McLaughin shares with us his unique approach to digital portraits, and provides some information about his background in traditional media, as well as what currently inspires his work. Following his words you will find more of his portraits and a link to his portfolio, where you can enjoy even more of his art.
Video portraits combine videography with elements of still photography to produce something derivatively new. I can’t quite nail it down, but it seems that video portraits have the power to evoke an emotional response that’s different and in some ways more powerful than still photography.
Says Robert Wilson, who creates high definition video portraits, “You think nothing is happening at first, and then you get caught in the subtlety of it and you realize there’s much more there than first meets the eyes.”
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Diego Rivera is best known for his large dramatic murals, and perhaps for his marriage to Frida Kahlo. What’s less known is that from 1913 to 1917 he painted a series of cubist portraits. Twenty-three of these paintings, along with some sketches and illustrations, will be on display at the Meadows Museum in Dallas Texas, from June 21 through September 20, 2009.
It’s unusual to a find a serious, well-executed portrait painting that features a big, wide-open smile. Toothy smiles have become a hallmark of amateur portraits painted as copies of a photographs, without any real effort at originality. There are exceptions, of course.
Some of Frans Hals portraits, for example. And now, this portrait by Jesse Fillingham, a student at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California.
Over at Photo.net, the editors pick 35 of their favorite children’s portraits.
“Unique Children’s Portraits: innocent eyes wide open, candid portraits, sincere honest expressions, serious child thoughts, children focused on learnigng a new skill, glimpses of a child’s make-believe world, happiness without boundaries…”
“The Photo.net editors selected a handful of images illustrating creative children’s portrait photography. Many of our talented photo.net portrait photographers have captured glimpses of child innocence, playfulness and creativity in unique settings. Please add your favorite children’s portrait photography to the comments section below.”
The pictures live here.
In Nashville’s The Tennessean, MiChelle Jones, writing about “The Contemporary Portrait” exhibit at the LeQuire Gallery, explains that the gallery’s portrait business is not suffering and notes that the exhibition started as an economic trend.
“Gallery director Elizabeth Cave says she noticed a strange thing: Despite the increasingly bad economic news, commissions for portraits had remained steady; in fact, there seemed to be an increase in demand.”
“It’s been a big part of Alan (LeQuire)’s work for 25 years,” Cave said during the show’s packed opening, “but the last six months have been especially busy.”
The Tennessean article is here, and the LaQuire Gallery site can be found here.
El Greco is best known for his dramatic figures featuring the full range of human emotions, but he was also an accomplished portraitist. 100Swallows provides a brief survey of El Greco’s portraits, placing them in the time line of the artist’s life.
The full read is here.
The portrait is probably the least likely candidate for painting with a palette knife. A portrait requires a high degree of control, but with a palette knife compared to a brush, you lose some of this control.
However, if you can pull it off, what you gain is a painting that may be more lively, more expressive, and more exciting. Kentucky artist Bill Guffey can pull it off. In this article, he provides some insight on the use of the palette knife, using a recent portrait as an example.
Following his insights and the image of the portrait, don’t miss the the close-up shots of his knife work. Also, be sure to check out the links to his online galley and his blog. You’ll find that his landscapes are equally as compelling as his portraits. –Greg
This interesting read in London’s The Independent argues that the upsurge of interest in portrait competitions is a sign of an increased interest in portraiture in general.
Citing the National Portrait Gallary’s BP Portrait award in particuliar, the article contends that “the popularity of the BP Portrait Award is indicative of a new interest in portraiture in general, which is itself stimulated by the number of competitions for portraiture, both painted and photographic, which now exist…”
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In this short tutorial at Digital-Photography-School.com, guest contributor “sarahgirl” describes how to set up a studio portrait shoot with one light and a reflector. Here’s a tiny taste:
“I was still able to throw the wall out of focus because I used a little zoom (70mm) and had the subject away from the wall. I could have stood further back and zoomed in more to cause the back wall to blur even more. The distance from the wall also causes the wall to become darker. If you want it lighter you can move your subject a little closer to the wall.”
The tutorial can be read here.
In this feature article, Ohio USA artist Nora Sallows shares her approach to oil portraiture. A few samples of her expressive brushwork are presented following the text, as well as where you can find her on the web. –Greg
At London’s “The Independent,” Charles Darwent gives an unflattering review of Sherman’s latest portrait exhibit:
“Repellent is, I think, not too strong a word for Cindy Sherman’s latest suite of portraits, five of which are on show at her London gallery.”
“Her portraits, in not really being portraits, seem to set out to fool us – to convince us that they are representations of other people when they are all of Sherman herself. Given the post-Renaissance belief that portraiture has a duty to reveal hidden truths, this seems particularly heinous. You might see Sherman as having a moral intent: the camera proverbially never lies, but hers does nothing but. In a world increasingly defined by pictures – the millions of images thrown at us daily by television, print media and the internet – it is a useful lesson, although one we have already been taught by, say, the staged street-shots of Jeff Wall. For all their upfront status as art objects de luxe, Sherman’s portraits wear their fakery on their sleeve.”
The exhibit is at Sprüth Magers until May 29. Follow the links and reach your own opinion:
Joshua Bolduc takes you step by step in drawing a digital portrait using basic photoshop brushes.
Ten images show each stage of the drawing, starting with a linear sketch and ending with the rendered portrait.
“It’s important to stay loose while drawing so go ahead and scribble in shapes, keep an eye on the grid as you do this but don’t be overly concerned about getting it perfect, this will come later. ”
“The process in theory is very simple but it takes a long time. I spent close to 20 hours on this project and there is more I can do with it (such as fix her left eye and thumb).”
The tutorial can be found here.
I’m a little late on this one, but I’ve found that online images don’t fade. Sometimes they just go away, but they never fade.
At lensculture.com, Liza Fetissova curates the portraits of 5 Russian photographers: Evgeny Mokhorev, Oleg DOU, Marina Lapina, and Margo Ovcherenko. The work of these photographers and others can be seen at the Russian Tea Room, a gallery in Paris. Liza is the director of that gallery.
“The photography exhibition ‘Regarde-moi dans les yeux’ (or ‘Look me in the eyes’), at the Russian Tea Room Gallery is an attempt to study the question of identity of Russian photography. Through the portraits of their comrades, the photographs exhibited here approach the issue of Russian photography like a magnifying glass, trying to answer two crucial mirroring questions: “What is a Russian portrait?” and “What does Russian photography truly look like?”
The article lives here. You can view more from these photographers at the Russian Tea Room site.
I’ve discovered that Joe Zeltsman’s book, “The Zeltsman Approach to Traditional Classic Portraiture” is available online. The 16 chapters appear to be complete, with plenty of images to illustrate the various topics of the book. The book is full of useful information on a classical approach to facial valuation, posing, and lighting. The book is written for photographers, but I believe portrait painters and will also find this information useful.
I’ve not run down the source of the book’s posting — I hope it does not violate any copyrights. I know that Zeltsman was a popular portrait photographer who died last December. His influence was widespread, and included another well known teacher, Marty Zucker. Chapter one of the book includes a brief biography.
The book lives here.
Renouned artist Nelson Shanks will receive the Portrait Society of America’s lifetime achievement award on April 25 at the society’s annual conference.
I can’t find any information on about this on the Society’s web site , except for a mention in the pdf brochure. I came by this information via an entry on phillyburbs.com:
Says Shanks: “I’m honored to receive the Portrait Society of America’s gold medal. We must all strive to achieve the highest standard in painting and the portrait as fine art.”
You can see Nelson Shank’s work here .
It’s hard to imagine what it’s like to have the legendary Daniel Greene critique your portrait painting in front of the camera and 20 others. But it’s less hard now thanks to an entry in Susan Carlin’s art journal sharing the experience with both words and a video.
“…there were perhaps 20 or more people watching and listening. Gulp. I was especially braced when it was my turn, since I was second-to-last of those receiving critiques, and he had not pulled any punches on those who had come before. He had pointed out positives, yes, and had been quite blunt about the problems. The first 40 seconds of the critique he was silent as he studied the painting.”
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