Heather’s Digital Portrait: A Progression

When I saw this progression of a digital portrait from start to finish on Heather’s blog, I recognized the mass-in approach many oil painters use. I suspected she had been trained in classical media. As it turns out, she has. It seems to me that digital artists who were first trained in classical media can do good work in any 2 dimensional media.

For this work Heather used a pressure sensitive digital tablet and started with a blank ‘canvas’ — without tracing: “Everything is drawn by eye though, no painting over a photograph or cutting pieces of the photograph to match up the sizes. I think it’s better practice that way.”

“I just know that I really avoid using filters, and going to art school it was a big no-no if you used them in class. I am sure you can get some pretty impressive things done with filters, and you can probably use them to your advantage if you use them in combination with your painting. Sometimes it’s nice to add a little gaussian blur to a blocked in painting and then to work on top of that. I just personally think that it will look most natural and unique (not to mention rewarding) if you can learn to paint without the crutches of filters.”

“I just work very traditionally. I work from darks to lights, and I block in the basic shapes. If I use any texture I want it to be in the lights, since that is how the paint is typically built up. Values are very important to me, and I make sure to lay out my lightest lights and darkest darks. I also am very particular about using my own photography, because I think lighting is key for portrait work.”

The following images show how the work progressed, ending with the finished portrait. Heather’s blog entry can be found here.