Composing your Portrait

The traditional way to compose a painting is, of course, to do a sketch.  Many artists do this because they feel it helps them to get to know their way around the painting as it were. Have a look at this example kindly provided by the portrait artist Bayani de Leon ('Bayani artist' can be found on flickr.com and is well worth a visit).

I personally dislike doing sketches to find my composition.  I find that I don’t tend to care enough because I have in my mind that it’s only the sketch and not the real thing.  I also find that I suffer from boredom when I come to do the actual portrait painting.  For me it’s a bit like reading a good book.  If I’ve just finished it, even though it was good, I don’t particularly want to go back to the beginning and start all over again!  Don't worry if you feel the same; it doesn't mean that you are not a proper artist.  I am not ashamed to say that at home I make full use of my pc.  I use the drawing package Paintshop Pro to collect, store and manipulate images.  I cut and paste different bits of different images to make up my own compositions.  I can change backgrounds and colours in an instant and learn compositional lessons that I used to have to paint an entire portrait to learn.  I suppose the next step down the line for some from this might be digital art, although I doubt I will ever take that route.  I enjoy painting too much.

1. You've got to make a painting of a portrait 

You’ve got to make it interesting.  Generally speaking just sticking down a head, floating in the ether and cut off at the neck, doesn’t work.  On the occasions that it does it will be because the artist has provided something of intense interest to hold your attention.  Bayani artist above, for example, holds your interest by working with beautiful vibrant lines of colour.  The more common way that portrait artists use composition to hold your interest is by including something other than just a face.  It may be a piece of jewellery, a patterned item of clothing, an expressive hand gesture (most portrait artists are just as experienced at painting hands as they are faces) or an article with a strong association to the sitter that tells you something about who they are.  In his portrait of the art dealer Ambroise Vollard, Renoir intentionally has his subject’s hands lovingly holding a small sculpture.  The hands add an emotive quality to the portrait and the sculpture gives a narrative about the sitter’s occupation.

3. Provide focal points in your portrait composition

Frequently, though not always, the focal point of a portrait is the eyes.  Look at this portrait of Madame Henriot by Renoir.  See how everything is painted very loosely and impressionistically except the eyes which pierce you and keep drawing you back to them.  To reinforce your focal points (and you may well have more than one) make the contrast between light and shadow much greater than anywhere else in your portrait painting.  This doesn’t mean you can’t have bright colour elsewhere in your portrait (in fact bright colours in the foreground of a portrait often work extremely well), just don’t do quite as much detail in the non focal areas and don’t heavily contrast bright areas that are outside your focus area(s).

4. Defy age with a side profile

There is a reason why historically monarchs often have their side profile portrait on coins.  The focal point of a side profile is rarely the eye, but the actual silhouette itself.  This is determined by bone structure and changes far less with age than a front facial image does.  So aging monarchs liked to have side profiles on coins and in portraits because it made them look younger.

Though it is not a portrait, if you want more, another great example is Daniel in the Lion’s Den by Rubens.  Put it into Google Images and have a look.

6. Think about the space you leave around your model

If you want to emphasise that a person, perhaps a child, is small, then leave plenty of space around them and particularly above their head in your composition.  In this painting by Rembrant the girl looks small and vulnerable because she is surrounded by a large amount of space.  Beware not to fall into the trap of not having enough areas of interest in terms of warm or light colours in the portrait.  This portrait would not work if Rembrant had left the background all black.  He purposely suffuses the canvas with a glaze of a very warm red brown to combat this.
Equally, If you want a person to appear important, tall and domineering, then leave very little space above their head in your composition, i.e. make them dominate the portrait space.