Choose a reference photo from a free licensing website or from images you have taken to use in your painting.

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Use your HB or 2B pencil to transfer your image by drawing directly onto the canvas.
TIP: Try a projecting a pre-sketched image onto your canvas to trace.

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Mix your paints and pour a workable amount on your plastic plate (or palette paper).
TIP: Use glass Mason jars that are sealable to store mixed paints. This is important because the paint doesn’t dry out while you’re painting and you don’t have to worry about remixing paint during your process. One thing about acrylics is that once acrylic paint dries their hue can different slightly than what they look like when they’re wet. It is much easier to have more than needed than to try and replicate later.

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Make sure your reference photo is close by and start by painting the background.
TIP: Work back to front so it is easier to fix simple details in the background.

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Once you've painted the background, start adding the base paints of your subject.

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As you paint the skin, hair, and clothes roughly block in where the shadows and highlights are going to be for each of those parts of the painting.
TIP: Blocking in the shadows and highlights will help you get an idea of how you will build up the details of your subject when you start detailing your portrait.

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During the detailing phase, you should be adding different amounts of white paint to your base paints for your highlights and “black” paint to create your shadows and dark tones. This method helps create consistency throughout your painting so you’re not getting distorted shades of darker and lighter tones, creating a uniform look to your painting.
TIP: Instead of using the traditional black, mix ⅔ ultramarine blue and ⅓ burnt umber to get a natural-looking black paint.

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As you’re building up your layers and values, use the mop brush to soften out some of the shadows and highlights. This makes the painting look more natural, especially with the skin and hair.
TIP: The uneven texture and smoothness of the mop brush is great for softening edges. It creates a smooth blending effect, almost like an airbrush, to your painting.

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Now, clean up your background. Start by cleaning up some of the edges around your subject, making sure your lines are crisp and there are no stray marks (unless you want those of course); then touch up any areas that you feel are needed.

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Paint the edges of your canvas so that it looks very clean and uniform.

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I Am Not My Hair Painting

Instructions

ADDITIONAL MATERIALS