Red Dot painting student Jeanne Alexander painted this portrait and I took photos in class as she progressed to make this step-by-step demo. Attention new students: Jeanne has been studying at Red Dot for several years. She began with almost no experience!
She make a photo copy to make notations that help her draw out the piece. Every student has their own way of getting their image how they want it, and Jeanne's is quite methodical.
She painted the background a periwinkle blue (it looks gray here) and drew out the image with pencil.
She started with the t-shirt.
She used a fairly diverse portrait palette for the skin tones.
Hair!
Features!
More features!
Hair touchup and more refining.
Final polishing. More contrast, especially on the lower right side of the face. Each of these steps took Jeanne a couple hours.