Portraits are wonderful gifts that you can give your friends and family. There is a personal touch in these portraits that you cannot find in other gifts. So it is now time to break away from buying age-old gifts like photo frames, crockery, mugs, decorative items that can be kept on the showcase and more. Drawing portraits from photos is a great idea for gifts. If you don’t have the skill to do it, you can always hire an artist who does commissioned portrait work. Not many people are aware about making realistic and natural portraits from photographs. So there are a few tips to help them understand the importance of these.
Reference photo should be simple
While it is alright to aim for the stars, you should also be realistic in your goals and expectations. The reference photo is the base for to make portraits, so choose the photo wisely. This decision should be taken into account after analyzing your skills and level of expertise. If you are just starting out, it is highly recommended that you draw portraits of small kids as it is quite easy to draw them. Their photos don’t create too many shadows, making it less-complicated for you. If you have considerable experience in this field, you can move on to painting older people or pets, as there are more textures or line sin these photos that require a lot of detailing. In a nutshell, it can be summarized that if your reference photo is not right, the quality of your portrait goes for a toss.
Make use of technology
Today, there are many artists who provide their services online. Technology has grown to such an extent where all you need to do is just send them the reference photo and they can do the portraits online and send it back to within a quick time. Many house portraits online are done this way. One of the best gifts that you can give your friends of family is a piece of childhood. Make unique portraits online from watercolor, pencil sketches, color pencils and other modes quite easily through these online artists. Remember that you will only get what you send. Ensure that the quality of the reference photos that you send is of top quality, in order to get the desired results.
Stick to the basics
When you are doing portraits from pictures, it is always recommended that you stick to the basics. Never draw too many skin textures or give unnecessary shadows or create bags under the eyes that are not in the photos. When you add your own elements to your portraits, it stops being the actual reflection of the original photo. Hence, the originality is disrupted to a great extent. When there is no originality, it stops exuding the same meaning or emotion that it intended to convey. To retain the originality of the portrait, keep checking back to the reference photo frequently, to see if you are on the right track or not.
Highlight the features that you have to
Once you have got the basic structure of the human or pet. You have to start the shadowing job so that you can highlight the features of the portrait well. To do a good job out of it, you have to determine the dark and light features of the photo. You can give white or light shadows with the light features of the portrait and make the dark features as black as possible. This will lend a nice contrast to the portrait and make it look stunning.
Choose the right artist
When you are looking to hire a professional portrait artist to do the work for you, you have to ensure that you choose the right artists for the right kind of portraits. Some specialize in house portraits from photos and others specialize in kids portraits. Some are great in doing portraits of natural scenic beauty and the like. You should choose the relevant artist to give life to your portraits and make them look artistic and natural.
Now that you know some fundamental concepts of drawing portraits and getting them done. We are sure you have understood that the portraits are great gifts for any occasion, for your friends and family.
Source : mavenart
