Art Blog - What Makes A Painting Work

In creating portraits an artist has a lot of points to tie into reality and produce a recognizable person. Individual faces are so distinctive that properly done a caricature is as recognizable as a photorealistic portrait. Distinctive features such as full lips, an upturned nose or one that has been broken, a dimple, a jutting chin, thin or heavy brows and the like come in an almost infinite number of combinations to make faces memorable. But how do we recognize a person from a distance, or how do we recognize a person portrayed with a three inch expanse of paint pigment? These details from a wedding painting I did in watercolor fit that category. You cannot paint facial details. That would simply result in a cartoonish or grotesque look… Continue reading… 6 comments