Portrait Painting Step By Step

Step One: The masonite board has been primed with a light tan coloured gesso paint and sanded for a smooth surface.
The image was then drawn on using an HB pencil. It's now ready for painting.

Step Two: The baby , mother and light keys on the piano where masked off and then the dark areas where painted in using an airbrush.

Step Three: Started blocking in the basic colours and detail of the mother and child, also worked on the white areas of the piano.

Step Four: Masked off the dark areas I painted in step 2, then airbrushed the baby, mother and white keys. This technique is very useful when you want to soften the edges and add shadow colours. It's now ready to add more detail and clean up the edges using paint brushes and thin glazes.

Step Five: Added more detail to the mother and baby using brush and glazing techniques. I'll continue to add colours this way until everything looks real.

Step Six: This is the finished piece.
The dark areas have more detail than the scanned picture shows.
Portraits aren't my area of expertise but they sure are a nice change and challenge
to paint.