A Portriat. The final stage

Here's the finished portrait. Having touched up the shapes as best I could I moved on to other things like his shirt and neck line.

Notice the hair, even at the final stage, it still remains soft. I could even say that the hair line should have been softer now that I look at it smaller and more simplified. Look at any portrait of an accomplished painter of the 19th century and the hair line, and hair itself will be very soft, and very simple.

An important note on shadow: shadow is atmosphere, repeat that as your mantra when considering what to include in shadow. You never need to include as much as you think. Beware of reflected light as too much will ruin the atmosphere.

The general impression is good, and I got the likeness to what I wanted. This is though, your run of the mill academic portrait in all of its boring glory.

I could make the excuse that It was a practice run having been out of drawing for a number of months, which is a good enough reason. What it's lacking is expression, a sense of life and vitality.

No amount of technical skill will be able to take the place of energy in a painting. Two great examples of this are painters who were rivals of one another, Ingres and Delacroix.

Ingres was technically the better painter, he was very tight in his paintings, and overall he was boring in most of his compositions. Delacroix on the other hand, wasn't technically as good, but his work has an energy to it that Ingres is severely lacking.

If you spend your life painting figures, people are going to come to you for technique, if you paint pictures, people will go to you to be moved. Tell a story, or paint a figure. The portrait that I've done here can be said to have some technically appealing aspects to it, yet it will remain boring because it doesn't have life.

This comes to one after the fact. Of course, if this is what the person wants you to do in a portrait you have little choice, but if you're able, even if it proves more difficult, always go for the more interesting pose. Portraits should capture the life of the sitter.