Painting project

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

■ How to paint from a photograph and tonal sketch

■ Practise a four-stage painting

■ Build colour-mixing confidence using a limited palette

Last month I showed how to produce a good working thumbnail sketch (below) from a photo reference (right). Now let’s see how to paint a picture from these sources using the original photo reference and the thumbnail sketch I made from it. I used water-mixable oils, but you can use traditional oils just as well.

My process is in four steps: the line drawing, painting in the darks, blocking in, and finally adding variety