Oil portraits
Welcome to my all about my oil portraits page, the home of equipment, process photos, and my studio.
Oil paintings make beautiful portraits. They have a lovely, almost velvety look, and are quite three dimensional with a depth and colour to them that can be stunning. They appear very tactile, you can almost sink your fingers into the fur. Like my charcoals they are based on the photo, but they are so much more than that in the way they come to life and have such presence.
Oil paintings are timeless pieces, made to be treasured and passed down through generations.
Stages of an Oil Portrait
Stage 1
Stage 2
Stage 3
Stage 1 begins with drawing up the portrait using a grid system. I used to work freehand, but the grid is much quicker and helps avoid those small proportional errors that can take hours to correct — though it’s not completely foolproof. Once the drawing is in place, I lay down a rough base coat. There’s very little detail at this stage, but it provides a solid foundation to build on.
Stage 2 is where I develop the base detail and refine any proportions. This is the longest stage, and I usually start building the background here as well.
Stage 3 focuses on bringing the portrait to life — building highlights and refining details to create depth. I work from dark to light, using larger brushes in the early stages and moving to the smallest brushes for fine detail. The background is also developed further, typically in 4–5 layers. Overall, the portrait itself usually consists of no more than 5 layers, sometimes fewer, depending on its size and complexity.
The finished oil painting
In the final stage, this includes all final detail touches to the fur, including whiskers and fluffing out the body into the background.
My oil materials
For my canvas, I work on fine grain cotton and occasionally linen. Both of them have a lovely smooth texture which is beautiful to work on and great for fine detail. For my paints, I use mostly Winsor and Newton Artist Professional, though I am developing a love for Michael Harding paints! These are stored my trusty paint tin which belonged to my mother who was also an artist. It's quite old now and I love it! My brushes vary in types and sizes and get smaller as I work through the layers. Some of my best ones are my tiny detail brushes and the Da Vinci effect brush which I carved up as it was far too bulky but works really well now.
My freestanding easel, I only use this for large works
My desk easel, the one I normally use for portraits
My paints and trusty paint tin!
My detail brushes, some of them are really small!
That’s really it for my process and studio! I do quite a bit of study here and there and follow a lot of artists, so I am always looking for ways to improve my work. And new tools!
If you have any questions at all about my process, or would like to know more, please follow me on my socials or get in touch.