Portraits

Toddler Wearing Bunny Ears

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This was done on an 8×8 canvas panel in shades of Golden’s Burnt Umber and Liquitex Raw Sienna. The actual color of the background is not turquoise, but rather a mint green (Phthalo Green Blue Shade and Titanium White) along the lines of the green color in the Adobe “Cutouts” image below.

I cropped the original photo to focus on the face, then used the Cutouts option within Adobe Photo Essentials, and then transferred the image to the canvas panel. What is most off from the photo is the nose and mouth; I’ll have to redo that and see if I can make it more exact to the contours of the child’s face.

Photo by Zena Ghosn on Unsplash

Let’s Face It 2026 — Week 4

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I did this portrait in acrylic on an 8×8 canvas panel as a part of the 4th weekly exercise of Let’s Face It 2026. It was taught by Laurie Johnson. I modified the reference photo in Adobe’s Photo Essentials, using the “Cutout” feature (set at 4) to make the skin shading lines. (Now I need to blend better!) I am thinking of redoing the whole thing. We’ll see. (In the meantime, she looks better in miniature.)

Let’s Face It 2025 — Week 1

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A year ago I signed up for Let’s Face It 2025, a 52-week series of portrait lessons which you can either follow along with or use as inspiration for your own fully original art, but I never did a single exercise. This was Week One and it was taught by Kara Bullock.

I have yet to complete any of the years I bought (2023 through 2025) although I just signed up for the 2026 version, but there are actually only a few weeks in each of the years which interest me, and they’re on my to-do list.

This one was done on an 8×10 canvas toned in quinacridone rose (PV 19), and I don’t have the photo credit information, but am guessing it’s on Unsplash or Pixabay. “In progress” photos are below. I used a lot of Burnt Umber, Raw Umber, Titanium White, and a crimson color (PR 264).

Sketch Awesome.. Portrait from a Loomis Head

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I have a bad habit of signing up for online classes (Jed Dorsey’s Mini Challenge, Ali Kay’s VIP Fresh Paint class, Sktchy’s 30 Faces in 30 Days, Kara Bullock’s Let’s Face It 2024 (and 2023) and now 2025) and then letting the classes languish. The only good thing is that they’re all “lifetime” (or at least until they go out of biz!)

Anyhow, I suddenly got fired up to draw more portraits, so I went back to Phil Davies’ Sketch Awesome class and looked up week 4 which was about drawing portraits based on the Loomis Method.

Below is the result of doing the head in profile via the Loomis method. I don’t have a credit on the author of the reference photo, which comes with the class.