Spring 2021 Portrait Painting Challenge: Sculpting Shading and Skin Tones in Your Acrylic Portrait

[@fineartbymattphilleo]

Take the FREE Acrylic Portrait Painting Challenge... realisticacrylic.com/spring-acrylic-portrait-painting-challenge

[@jutta3378]

Matt, I love your analogy of a map and various regions. Great video and as always, great teaching!

[@fineartbymattphilleo]

Glad!

[@stevebrown4819]

You probably heard this already,but squinting (blurring vision) helps you locate values and highlights

[@MultiplicityCrafts]

It's looking great! The color in her lips really made a difference.

[@fineartbymattphilleo]

Thank you! Little by little. :)

[@janereynolds2367]

Thank you very much, Matt.

[@dileepanarunkumar7839]

Awesome sir ! looking fantabolous, Sir God bless You

[@judymills873]

Wow! Looks amazing already

[@aasthathakur4676]

Can't thank you enough for this sir , not just for the patience with which you teach your technique but also for the helpful advices and encouragements you give. After lesson 4 , I thought I was doing everything incorrectly but after listening to the first part of this video where you tell about the challenges and the prayer... I felt quite confident! Thank you for everything , again sir !

[@fineartbymattphilleo]

You’re very welcome, Aastha! And you are doing a very good job on your portrait from what I have seen.

[@aasthathakur4676]

@@fineartbymattphilleo thank you so much sir , I'm so glad to know you liked it 😀😀

[@jackiedehon399]

OK I tried several times and finally got it to work. THANKS!!! Another terrific lesson!

[@janicelombardodambrosio2185]

Where to go next?

[@eddelmar2868]

It's really hard to paint and speak at the same time, you're amazing for doing such a multitask. You're a very gifted instructor Sir, may I know the FB group so I can affiliate. Thanks and God Bless.

[@meeranatarajan4487]

Matt, I have a question. Does the direction of the brush stroke matter ? Sorry for the silly question

[@fineartbymattphilleo]

Yes, but the main thing is to vary the brushstrokes. As the layers overlap, you want them going in different directions.

[@lanetterego221]

I think i started getting muddy colours in my portrait, like its kind of greenish...... Can I be able to fix that in the upcoming layers..... But its looking awesome and really looking 3d..... Thank You Matt but please help me

[@fineartbymattphilleo]

Hi Lanette. Yes, you can fix the colors as you go along. We have many opportunities to shift the color to what we want. I’ll be teaching you more!

[@jackiedehon399]

Video won't play. Skipped during welcome. No video, no dialogue. When I first opened it, it was at 22 minutes and I assumed someone didn't end their session. What to do???

[@fineartbymattphilleo]

I am not sure, Jackie. If you try again, maybe it will work now. Sometimes the video doesn't encode right away.

[@wisdomthoronka7063]

Can i not use water instead of matt medium

[@fineartbymattphilleo]

You can. But matte medium works better, in my opinion, because it is actually acrylic polymer resin and doesn’t weaken the binder in the paint. It usually applies smoother than just water alone.

[@cmeblu75]

I know everyone has their own techniques and styles, but I’m really surprised by this. Grid the drawing fill it in with colored pencil and then paint it like a coloring book. I’m a watercolor artist and it feels like this style took the fun right out of acrylics. I mean why not just use watercolor, a simple sketch and actually paint your values and save a few days and numerous drying times? I don’t understand it all.

[@fineartbymattphilleo]

Have you tried this technique? Many artists have found it very helpful-especially those who have struggled with blending and the fast drying time of acrylics. I can from a drawing and colored pencil background so it definitely influences my process.

[@cmeblu75]

@@fineartbymattphilleo that makes sense…there’s a lot colored pencil use and it’s beautiful, so I understand more why you’d want to incorporate the two mediums. Colored pencil work is slow and meticulous and this method is as well. I’m using golden open acrylics which by nature are extremely transparent (more so than normal heavy body acrylic and have a very long open time, it makes it so much easier to blend smoothly. The grisaille method is a little slow for me, although I am definitely doing glazes, but more like watercolor. I like to get my values established as quickly as possible and then adjust.