Diving Into Acrylics: Week 6 of 8

Trying out full-color portraits

The zoomed-in image of this John Singer Sargent Portrait of Carolus-Duran that I used to create my portrait, which is shown on the right.

For week 6 of my 8-week Beginner’s Acrylics Painting Class, we used our monochrome portraits from week 5 as a foundation with our lessons on full-color still life paintings to create a full-color portrait. Let’s dive into how we explored painting portraits with acrylics.

Full-color portraits

Our instructor had us use the same John Singer Sargent portraits from last week to now complete full-color versions as opposed to monochrome ones. She provided us with full-color images of the same portraits as last time, utilizing digital files that we viewed on our phones instead of printed copies since home printers often don’t provide as much detail and color accuracy. Below is the full-color image that she provided of my Sargent portrait from last week.

The zoomed-in image of this John Singer Sargent Portrait of Carolus-Duran that I used to create my portrait.

This progressive approach really helped me as a beginner since I had already done the same face before and practiced the values of the face in monochrome. It really helped me have the confidence and foundations to tackle this portrait in full color, something I would have had a hard time convincing myself I could do otherwise. I highly…