Day 4 - May 25, 2017 - A Self Portrait in Oil, Pt 2 (complete) and Oceanscape in Oil

Okay, I'm going to be perfectly honest with you all. I totally rushed through this one just to get it done. Portraits are something I'm still working on, even without the new-to-me oil medium - in my usual watercolor, or even graphite drawing, I still have a lot to learn. I find them much more complicated than drawing nature or animals. Since we as people are so familiar with human facial features, if even one thing is slightly off it throws the whole painting off.

I feel like this piece is very flat. I had trouble with making a realistic skin tone - I started too dark and too peachy, and trying to correct it gave me this weird grayish alien skin color. Also, the lips are too big. Eyelashes came out way too thick since my brush was too large (next time I'll try using a toothpick or something thin and small to paint on the eyelashes.) Also, I didn't even attempt to paint in my freckles. I'm probably critiquing this more than I normally would, since it's my own face I'm nitpicking.

But it's alright! I'll take this all as a learning experience. I find we learn more from "mistakes" than if we do things perfectly all the time, anyway. I was super relieved to move on from my self-portrait and paint this more relaxing ocean scene:

What do you guys think? Any suggestions for painting portraits? I probably make it more difficult than it should be. Or maybe I just need more practice.

Amanda
www.amandajfrench.com