A Christmas Angel

Here's the finished version of my little Christmas angel - she's so cute! As you can see in these last three stages I continued to work on her skin tone and hair, adding in different colours and shades for depth. Finally I worked on her eyes to make them really stand out as they are such a gorgeous blue. I'm sure she'll be brightening up her family this Christmas!

See some more examples of my child portraits.

A Christmas Angel

This gorgeous little girl is another portrait needed for Santa to deliver so the first three stages are done. I am painting her on a 16 x 16" box canvas and decided not to use texture paste on this portrait as her skin is so delicate I thought I'd let the canvas create any texture needed. I painted light shadows and a wash for the skintone first and made a point of bringing out her eyes, as these will be the focus of the painting. Then I added more colour to her clothes, hair and background and continued to paint fine glazes to gradually build up her translucent skintone. I can't be bold with the shadows on her skin as it will look too heavy so I'm adding paint very lightly and blending it in as I go (mostly with my fingers!!)

See some more examples of my child portraits.

A Portrait for Christmas

This portrait is now ready for Santa to deliver! For the last three stages work goes into getting the skin tone right by adding layers and layers of different coloured glazes. I added reds oranges and purples to lips, ears, neck and around the eyes; yellow and burnt sienna to the sides of the face, chin, forehead and under the eyes. I added light brush strokes of paynes grey to indicate slight stubble and used the same colour to darken his hair with highlights of titanium white to finish off.

See some more examples of my family portrait paintings