Portrait of Cate Blanchett on iPad

The problem with painting a beautiful woman from a photograph such as the one you see here of Cate Blanchett, is the same as with painting a small child. Their features often lack sufficient character; like you would see on a man or an older woman, to enable you to give their faces any depth. Although thankfully, the photographer who took the image I copied the actor's face from provided her with plenty of shadow. Sufficient that is, to highlight her high cheekbones and firm, broad nose. Both of which would have probably been lost had he flooded her face with too much light.

Stage 1

I began the portrait by blocking in the colours to establish the form of her head and position her eyes, nose, and mouth in their correct places. Her left ear on the other hand, began to look too prominent since she had lifted her hair above her head to expose her ear fully, which would have stood out even more against the white background once I had painted it in.

Stage 2

As I continued to blend the colours and fill in the details it soon became clear to me that the white background had to go: which was easy enough to change by using the paint pot and simply touching the surface of the iPad with my stylus.

 Stage 3

It was at this stage however, that I made a mistake. Just as I was eliminating the peculiar looking shapes  above her forehead; to replace them with more natural looking hair, I touched the surface with my stylus whilst still using the paint pot. Her ear, as you can see from the image below all but disappeared, and the background colour merged with the shadows on her face. This I liked, and decided to continue on rather than correct my mistake.

Stage 4

The final stage involved painting in part of her neck and softening the lines of her hair while lightening the background again, and working on the face a little more.

 

I am pleased with the result because it appears now that her face is emerging from the background. Thrusting it forwards rather than having to darken the shadows on her face merely to give her head more form. Besides which, it saved me the task of filling in all the other details, and probably overworking the image.