Karen Woolley Offutt

news, images and stories from the artist

Check out this video lesson to see how you can get a better likeness in portrait painting - How To Get A Better Likeness in Portrait Painting

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Steps to a Likeness - Oil Portraits

Well, some of the people I deem as "grand masters" I have already listed as teachers. This is where categorization starts to drive me crazy. Steven Assael is undoubtedly one of the great painters of our time, so it won't hurt to do another post for him. If you've never seen Steve develop a painting it is simply outrageous. At first his technique looks like a very bad idea, and it is very easy to get nervous that he's not going to pull the thing off, but he always does, gloriously. He uses a bright orange, red, or hot pink ground color and uses the surface as a palette. He works unbelievably quickly, slapping and slamming a loaded wet brush as though it were the enemy, but with a totally disinterested expression. Steve was in his twenties when he painted this. They roped off a section of their apartment to keep everything in the right place. Still my favorite. A piece in progress featured in the new American Artist.

Painting skin tones in oil paint can be challenging, especially for beginners, but it can also be a very rewarding process. In this article,

I found these images (explaining how to mix paints to achieve different skin tones) incredibly useful so I wanted to share them. They are from from “Painting the Head in Oil” by John Howard Sanden.…

Learn how to paint an oil paint portrait of someone using a photograph as a reference. This tutorial will guide you through the process step by step, giving tips along the way on creating depth and realism in your painting.

Richard Stull's feature article on Scott E. Bartner titled "Transcendent Technique" includes this step-by-step portrait painting demo on working up from a grisaille.