Go for excellence in portraiture

[Tito Champena]

Some portrait painters of renown have told me that after you have mastered the skill of painting from life, you may use photos because by that time, you will be able to edit the photo and not copy it. When you can paint from life, you will discover that a photography carries many errors that you have to discard and screen out, such as wrong values and distortions from the lens. Besides, a photo reproduces only one single and brief look of the sitter that may or may not be characteristic of his personality. Painters who are only interested in getting a likeness can certainly get it quickly from a photo, but a portrait is supposed to represent more than a likeness.
Frequently they ask you to reproduce your "photo reference" along with your painting before they can give you a critique. Jeff is right when he says that most of the critiques center on pointing out "errors" of drawing, by comparing your painting with the photo, as if the "likeness" is the only thing important in a portrait. I said before that some of the most famous portraits in the museums are considered masterpieces, even though there are no photographs of the sitters, available to compare. To me, a portrait has to be looked in its totality, no piecemeal. A portrait does not only represent the sitter but also the painter, a photo only represents the surface appearance of the sitter and leaves out the person and also the painter. Finally, I want to say that before painting, one has to master drawing, just like writers who have to know their grammar before attempting to write.