Painting the Adult Human Head

While dramatic lighting can offer the most obvious opportunity to employ strong shadows, a mix of both shadow and detail is a far more common circumstance. The painting below also uses well defined shadows that are mapped across the face. But here the artist swaps the deeper, neutral values of the last piece for more intense glazes of local color. The overlaying glazes of flushed skin tone allows the portrait to capture the more visible bloodflow around the eyes, nose, and hands while maintaining a light touch overall.