"The soul, fortunately, has an interpreter - often an unconscious but still a faithful interpreter - in the eye." Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

Hi steemians, sharing with you today an oil painting portrait I have been working on and the process that went into it. The reference photo I used was based of Aphrodite, 1879 William-Adolphe Bouguereau

First I began with brief pencil sketches to get the form right on the canvas.

Using the reference image and color picker tool on photoshop I picked the the basic tones that would be the foundations for my piece and created those tones with oils.

Working on the rest of the face here.

Added the background and I smoothed out the skin tones with my fingers instead of using a brush.

When I thought I had nearly finished I realized that I needed to change the neck proportions but the black oils were still wet which made it hard to. I also realized the proportions were a bit wrong and had to bring the nose, mouth and chin lower than it currently was.

After many small tweaks and adding more details I chose to finish here.

The natural light when taking the photo affected the way it looked so I tweaked some light settings after taking the photo to produce this finished piece!

Medium: Oil on canvas
Time: 10+ hours
Artist: @iansart

I liked the way the final piece turned out. There are many things I feel I could still improve on when I am being a perfectionist such as certain proportions, tones and blending however, I think this is a good first attempt at detailed oil portraiture. My main focus was to capture her character and expression through a painting. It is quite a peaceful and serene expression.

Hope you liked this painting and thanks for all your support!

Ian,