Make A Painting Of Your Mother

• There are several ways to paint a portrait. Use one method at a time or you can combine several methods together. Do not forget to take pictures of your mother before you start, as this will help you to decide in which mood or expression you want to paint her. Once you have decided the base, use prepared acetate instead of tracing paper as you can see through it. It comes very handy afterwards in painting if your lines begin to "wander" and you need to "correct". Use a sharp permanent marker as it makes a clean line and does not smear. Use a graphite paper and a ballpoint pen to transfer the drawing to the canvas. Another benefit of using sharpie lines is that original graphite lines will not be erased. However, if you are using oil coloring, then it is not necessary to make sharpie line.
• Use acrylic colors for first layer. In order to do this, you need to use acrylic primed linen, which will not stick to oil primed linen and will not be archival. For painting white, choose dull warmish neutral, about the value of a brown colored paper bag. If your mother has light skin, use the same paint and color for the skin tones as your "white". If she has dark skin, deepen the value accordingly. In order to cover canvas, you need to use one more layer of paint and make it flat as a poster. Remember two thin layers are better than one thick layer. This a good way to see if a composition works. Oil layer is good, but acrylics are faster way to saturate the canvas. Choose medium value paint for the objects in light and shadow. This will look dark once the white layer is covered. Always focus and establish black and white immediately in the painting. This will help all other mid range values fall into place.
• This is the basic of preparing canvas background and detailing of your mother portrait. The rest of the detailing of your mom's face, the background should be done very carefully. Create outdoor scene, keep it moody, messy or neutral. It is better to use transparent color during this stage. Now let dry the background. Once it is over, add the detailing using charcoal or soft chalk. Keep the light and the shadow in general so that you can manipulate it when needed. Use photograph as your reference. Now start with painting the clothing for your mother. Keep painting face to the last. Start defining eyes and cheek color, glazing layers should be done very slowly.