Oil painting: how to create your first portrait for painting

A portrait is any pose of a person or animal that you choose. However, oil painting portraits are best known for capturing a person or animal from the shoulders up and focusing on the head and facial features more often. Even beginning oil painters can learn to paint portraits with the proper tools and instruction. Oil painting is a fun hobby and you learn by doing.
This article will discuss some oil painting techniques so that you can take a photo or portrait of finished oil, acrylic, or watercolor painting. These are painting tips for beginners and for those who may be learning how to paint a portrait.
1. Prepare the canvas
I prepare my canvases with white acrylic gesso. I spread a layer of gesso over the canvas making the painting service smoother with each consecutive layer. This basic technique is used for oil and acrylic painting. If you are painting a portrait in watercolor, you would use watercolor paper, and therefore this step does not apply.
2. Get the sketch of the photo or image on the canvas
There are several methods that I use to get an accurate sketch of the prepared canvas. The first method I use and teach is the grid method. With the grid method, you simply place a grid of equal squares on the photo and canvas. Then you draw with a pencil what you see in each square. This creates a line drawing on the canvas. There are easier methods, but this is the first and sometimes the only one taught in most art classes.
3. Choose your painting medium
A painting medium simply means the type of paint you are using, oil, acrylic, or watercolor in general. With oil painting, there are a few options for types of paint to use. There are traditional oils. These seem to be preferred by many artists. Traditional oil paints require turpentine or other solvents to thin and clean. You should choose odorless solvents because of the adverse health effects that are possible from inhaling the toxins found in some thinners or solvents. For more information visit the portrait from photo.

With oil painting, you should start to lean. You want the bottom coats to dry faster than the thicker topcoats. For this to happen, those first coats are lightly applied. With oil painting, it is important to really think in terms of applying brushstrokes of color and then repeating. If your portrait begins to take shape, you can apply thick layers of colors.
With acrylic and watercolor paint, you also work in layers. Acrylic paint is added on top and gently rubbed to blend with the lower layers. Layers of watercolor are applied smoothly until the color is as dark as desired.