Painting Luminous Portraits for Artists: An Essential Guide to Painting Facial Features, Fleshtones, Light, and Form

The complete guide to painting the portrait in oils.

From Steve Forster, award-winning portrait artist and co-director of the Long Island Academy of Fine Art, Painting Luminous Portraits for Artists presents essential lessons on how to paint a radiant likeness in oils in ten comprehensive chapters, each with skill-building exercises and QR codes to instructional videos:

• Discover fundamental materials, techniques, and basic anatomy and feature development for creating an underdrawing. • Explore color theory and color palette structures. • Learn painting techniques, including different shape and lighting approaches. • Consider creative strategies for portraits. • See how digital painting techniques can be used to support and enhance traditional painting techniques.

Perfect for artists at all skill levels who want to explore capturing form and light through realistic painting techniques, Painting Luminous Portraits for Artists shows you how to capture the human portrait from a diverse range of perspectives, flesh tones, and light effects.

The For Artists series expertly guides and instructs artists at all skill levels who want to develop their classical drawing and painting skills and create realistic and representational art.

Also available from the series: Drawing the Head for Artists, Essential Human Anatomy for Artists, Figure Drawing for Artists, Life Drawing for Artists, Drawing and Painting Botanicals for Artists, Dynamic Still Life for Artists, Facial Expressions for Artists, Landscape Painter’s Workbook, Plein Air Techniques for Artists, and Sketching Techniques for Artists.

© 2025 Rockport Publishers (Ebook): 9780760395639

Release date

Ebook: 26 August 2025