It was difficult, but interesting! The light from the window was weak and cool, and so were the shadows on the face and in the background. After finishing the portrait, I returned to it the next day and warmed up all the shadows. Also, this portrait doesn’t look anything like me… but it was still a great exercise!

Portraiture in Oil Pastel with Samir Rakhmanov

Skills

Posted on

March 31, 2025

← Another from the morning sketching the view down the valley. It was a good few hours exploring watercolour & finding out how I cope with it. Really fascinating finding different ways to interpret the same view at different moments. I managed to paint rather a lot of these and whiled away a good few hours playing & investigating; how wet to make the paint, wet the paper first – or not, intensity of colour, how the paint bleeds & makes a mess, and so much more. I’m thinking that watercolour will be good to take sketching, to use on its own or to add to my usual watersoluble crayons , pencils & charcoal. I don’t have much time to paint this week because of work, so this took me about 1 hour. I used a ~13×18 cm (5×7 inch) cold press watercolor paper, which, in hindsight, was a big mistake: I just couldn’t achieve the level of detail, layering, and texture I wanted on such a small surface. Blending with dilution and paper stubs helped, but some areas still ended up a bit muddy. I also think I instinctively leaned too much into realism, a habit I’m trying to rein in. →

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