I've finished the first of ten oil portraits I am creating for my research project into identity.
I painted the backgrounds of the portraits before I travelled to Germany/Austria/Belgium for three weeks - hoping that they would dry by the time I returned. Kristyna was one of my "test portraits", so I decided to start with her's.
I wasn't happy with how the test portrait had turned out, so I revised the design slightly. But most importantly, I made sure to focus on the lighter/darker areas of colour to represent the light/shadow in the original portrait, so that the resulting portrait had greater depth and appeared less flat and monotonous.
This style of painting requires high levels of concentration and patience. I can manage around 6-8 hours when I have an entired day free to work on the painting.
I'm pretty happy with how this portrait has turned out in the end. I hung it on my wall to dry, and captured this photograph when the sunlight was shining throuhg my window creating a shadow frame around the painting.
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