Lunatique's Sketchbook

[Lunatique]

It's interesting how your portraits really come alive in the final stage. Of course the foundation is necessary but the nuances you add at the end make it beautiful.

That's an interesting point. I've mentioned that the portrait painters I admire all paint with a lot less detail than I do, since they're usually alla prima painters, and time is a luxury for them. I don't paint alla prima anymore (I used to when I was younger) because I like being able to take my time and experiment instead of feeling the pressure of getting it done before the model gets too tired. And to artificially limit how much time I could spend on a portrait feels odd when using photo reference, because it feels contrived.

The interesting part of your point is that the final stage makes the portrait come alive with the nuances that are missing in the rougher stages, but those details are what I've been wanting to leave out in order to paint more like the alla prima painters I look up to. So it's a strange dilemma, which has my goal and what people like about my portraits at odds with each other. The struggle for me has been to keep some of those nuanced details but also get looser so there's more of an alla prima look to my work, and it's been a real challenge to strike that perfect balance. Maybe it's not even possible because it has to be one or the other, but I can't be sure about it until I've decided it's time to give up on the experiment.