MILLIE SMITH portrait process overview.
My latest portrait is of Millie Smith, the second painting I've made for this family, following an earlier one of her older brother Sebastian. This was Millie's first go at a portrait photo shoot, taken on a bright early-spring morning in Dorset, with that low, soft sunlight giving everything a gentle warmth. The photo itself was taken at a good friend's wedding, and like her brother's portrait, Millie was dressed a bit more formally for the occasion, which gave the image a slightly grown-up feel while still being completely her.
We took several hundred photos that day, working through different poses and angles, but this one stood out almost straight away. There's a calm, settled quality to it, her expression quietly composed, that just captures her age perfectly. At the same time, it's still got that charmingly childlike softness to it, which is exactly what I wanted the painting to hold onto rather than smooth away.
What really drew me in was the light, especially the way it caught the texture of her woolly cardigan and the way her hair fell loosely over one shoulder. In the actual photo, most of her body is sitting in shadow, with the highlights mostly concentrated on the cardigan and her hair. For the painting, I wanted to bring those highlights out even more, pushing the contrast further than the photo so the cardigan and hair really carry the eye.
For the background, I went back to my usual block colour approach, pulling from the stone tones of the wall behind her in the photo. I kept the same soft gradient that was there in the shot, letting it shift gently across the canvas rather than flattening it out, which felt true to the light in the original photo.
Working through the poster studies
As I did with Sebastian's portrait, I worked through a couple of poster studies before starting on the main canvas. The first one I knocked out in an afternoon, much looser, just to test colour and composition. Then I moved on to a slightly bigger second study, where I actually worked out the chroma values and had a go at the hair, which I really enjoyed painting.
Doing two rounds of studies gave me the room to push those highlights the way I wanted, rather than trying to nail it all in one go. That second study is the one I was happiest with. I loved how the cardigan turned out, and it gave me a clear feel for the style going into the full-size portrait. The likeness wasn't quite there yet though, the lips especially needed some work, so that's what I focused on once I moved onto the main canvas.
Below are a few pictures documenting the process, from that first loose poster study through to the second, and on to the finished portrait, plus some photos with the family too.
More behind-the-scenes process shots are on my Instagram and here on the blog.
