Paint a Portrait-Posing the Model

Alexander Shundi: Hi, I am Alex Shundi and this is how to paint a portrait. In this clip, I am going to show you how to place the model, how to pose her and the best way to do it is to get a just a very normal, very simple light of above 75-100 watts and place at about 3.

5-5 feet away from the figure. The reason why you want to do that is because when you are working two-dimensionally which is what a canvas is, it's flat, you want to take the actual form and give it a lot of difference between the light and the dark. That translated onto a canvas will give us the idea of three-dimensionality and roundness. So I am going to put the light on and as I do, you will see that suddenly her face becomes more dimensional. Now that means that this part is lit, this part is in dark. If I were not to do that and keep the face in relatively even light then what happens is that as I translate that to a flat surface, you will just get a shape but not a form. What I am going to do now is take her face and put her on a three-quarter view, just like that. So fundamentally, this is what I would like at as I paint on a canvas. The reason why I am doing that is because if you do something on a profile, then literally, half of her face is gone. Whereas if you are doing your on absolutely head-on say like this, then you would have very little definition as to what the personality of her curves in the faces are. Therefore, I am going to put a three-quarter. Traditionally, not in history, you will see that the vast majority of paintings are done on a three-quarter view. Alright, that looks great. Now in the next clip, I am going to show you how to place this image on a canvas.