A Portrait Painting Experiment ~ Jolynn Redmond

So as I have mentioned before, fine art portrait painting and other technical art are not my expertise or preference. However, I have been challenging myself to take on more and try to improve in this area. I had a request for a painting based on a photo taken by Frank Henshaw of the lovely Jolynn Redmond (both awesome local photographers on Guam). I gave full disclosure that I would experiment with it, but no guarantees. Challenge accepted.

I decided to try something different. Instead of looking at the photo and just trying to replicate my version of it onto the canvas, I printed out the photo (and my printer wasn’t really cooperating, colors got all weird) and then used paint to paste it directly onto the canvas. Then I painted over it. You could call it trace-painting I guess.

I enjoyed doing this painting, it was something completely different from my norm. And no, I don’t consider it “cheating” unless I were trying to tout about what an amazing portrait master painter I am. I make no such claims. In fact, even tracing, I still didn’t quite get her facial features on point. Even though I laid on paint pretty thick, you can still see the edges of the pasted picture.I am proud of this piece though, simply because I created it. It was fun, and I think it is a cool piece.

Here are photos of the process from start to finish:

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