Oil portrait sketches

Custom oil portrait sketches available. These are based on a digital photo reference, painted on canvas. Size: A4. Please contact for orders.

Portrait painting workshop

Unfortunately this has been cancelled due to COVID :(

Yes! I will be hosting a portrait painting workshop in near future. The venue will be in Century City / Milnerton are in Cape Town (South Africa). The date is not yet decided.

The workshop will be perfect for people who would like to try their hand in portrait painting in oil. The workshop will also cover color theory and construction of face / facial features.

This will be a basic workshop and will ideally be suited for adults with some experience in painting with any medium (oil, acrylic, watercolor etc.)

Watch this place for more information!

Double portraits and pricing

My latest commissions were 2 double portraits - beautiful twins (from the previous post) and a stunning couple.

People often ask why is the double portrait so much more expensive than a single, even though it is the same or similar size.  Double (and multiple) portraits more challenging than singles. Yes, I would not be using much more canvas and paint for double portrait compared to single, but...

- I still need to paint another portrait that would take me the same time as the single- so doubled time and attention.
- in the double the portrait is a bit smaller and its harder to get the details in it to achieve likeliness;
- the colors need to match. With that I mean that colors should not only be life like for one person, but also if looked between two people. For example in the couple portrait, it was easier to choose the colors as the skin tones are fairly distinct.
- if the portrait is combined from a different photos / positions, it involves extra planning to make the portrait look natural.

All in all, this was a fabulous commission. I am happy with the result, so are the clients :)

PS. Both portraits are oil on 14x18 inch stretched canvas.

"Sun kissed" portrait

Very often my biggest problem is choosing the subject to paint. especially if it is oil and on canvas - for some reason oil on canvas feels so much more serious. In fact acrylic is often a more durable medium.

So, one day I was browsing through Facebook, just like we all do, and I saw this photo of my friend. Oh, my- what an amazing photo! With her permission I am posting the portrait painting of her based on that photo. I know she is not a fan of yellow, but for some reason, yellow felt like the right color for it:)

Attempt at Trevor

We just got back from a 5 weeks holiday in Europe where I did not touch a brush. So yesterday I decided to check if I can still do it. The hardest thing is always to choose the subject. This time I chose Trevor Noah as he is now a very popular South African comedian in the States heading the Daily show.

The painting is on oil and in ala prima (wet on wet, finished in one srsion) technique, since I have to go to work the next morning and I am too impatient to leave the painting for longer.

The painting took me about 2 hours, but I am not happy with it. I know 2 hours is quite quick, but Trevor does not look like Trevor. There are some similarities, but I missed something.

I see many artists do daily paintings, I will have to do that too, to get my game up. There are only 2 problems- when to find time and what to do with those paintings afterwards?

Horse painting - speed painting

I love painting portraits. It can be portraits of humans or animals- I simply enjoy it better than landscape, still life or abstract.

Horses are one of my most favourite subjects. In fact my whole venture in art started with horses - as far as I remember- I have been drawing horses :)

Here is my latest painting and time lapse. I hope you enjoy it.

Oil painting time lapse portrait

My laptop is not doing so well lately and I have been using my phone to check the reference photo when painting, which is not ideal- the screen is tiny and I need to keep unlocking the phone all the time.

But then I decided to attempt a time lapse / speed painting video:

Here is the finished painting. SOLD.

2018 paintings

The 2018 has started slow for me. Since I did the tourist guiding course in October and been guiding here in Cape Town, there was not much time for painting. Oh, we also did major renovations in the house and painting and dust don't co exist very well.

Brushes and paint tubes were finally dusted off (literally!) in March, 2018.

Here are the results since then:
All of them are 30x40cm oil paintings on canvas grain paper.

RAW by R.Grizane
SOLD

LITTLE APPLE

UNTITLED
SOLD

PINK DREAM by R.Grizane

BE SELF
SOLD

INNOCENCE

Have an awesome time painting!!!

Sunny portrait

I have a very sunny friend and it was her birthday, so she got a sunny portrait from me ;)

Video is also an interesting presentment how background colour changes the feel of the portrait.

The former president

I had this painting in mind for a while (read a couple of years), but it never seemed a good time or good reason.

Yesterday I wanted to start a portrait for my cousin, but could not find the reference photos, they are somewhere in limbo between the new and old phone. So I decided that it was time to do a portrait of the former president of Latvia, Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga. She was elected President of Latvia in 1999 and re-elected in 2003 for the second term. An amazing woman!

She is wearing a national costume in the portrait.

Time lakpse YouTube video accessible here: https://youtu.be/5hwlzUaxATA

Inspired by Game of Thrones

The new season of the cult series just started. I can't say that I am a huge fan of Game of Thrones, but I do glance at the screen now and then, when GOT is on. Look, I even used the abbreviation  like a pro :D

One of my biggest challenges in painting is to choose a subject. That probably is the reason why I like doing commission work ;) - the subject is provided beforehand!

Alla prima painting of Khaleesi.
16 x 16 cm
Oil on canvas.

You might notice that this portrait is some what similar to the one in the previous post. First- it's the same size and second - I used the same color palette. This size is very unusual for me actually, but I am enjoying it- as painting can be finished in one session within 3h.

Here is a time lapse video of first part of the painting process: https://youtu.be/hZrAQRxVZbA

Oil portrait of girls

I can finally reveal this portrait of my sisters girls. I painted it for our parents as a Xmas gift. Although it was posted from South Africa to Europe on 14th December, may parents received the painting only the beginning of March. I am unsure who to blame- the SA post office or holiday season for the delay, but clearly am happy that the painting reached the target unharmed:)

Here they are:

The process of painting them was somewhat challenging since it is hard to get two kids of that age to look into the camera and pose at the same time. So I had to do some adjustments to the final setup, putting the parts of the different pictures into one. I am quite happy with the result.

Here are some progress photos: