A unique way to paint a portrait


Our guest artist this month was Pam McCauley - she shared her creative and unpredictably cool way of painting a portrait with oils and a palette knife. 

She substitutes various colors for values - she starts with a light sketch of her subject, then applies the dark shades first, followed by medium and light shades. 

Once all the colors were in, she surprised us by quickly swiping the edge of her knife down the painting, across the top to the right, then midway down and across to the left, which smudged the colors a bit and added these terrific streaks across the face. The subject almost seems as if she is behind a pane of glass. 

Pam's final step is to use a brush to blend some of the lines between colors to create more cohesion. Her demo was definitely a crowdpleaser!