What is your favorite Strategy when facing a Challenging Painting? Do you let difficulty scare you and not do or do you have any secrets? Feel free to share 😊🎨👍

You never really stop being a beginner in painting. The only things that really change are your patience and frustration-tolerance.

One of the things that really helps me solve a problem, is to take a picture of the progress and study the photo. When I'm looking at a reference, I'm focusing on all the shapes yes, but also the values. I focus on what I'm seeing, not what I think I see. I let my hand become my eyes.

When I get to a hard part in a photo reference, I'll refer to a rough outline of the shapes I work up in photoshop. It makes a cartoon of sorts of the shapes. This helps to take me out of my head and see the true nature of the shape I'm trying to draw. I also pull guidelines onto important landmarks in photoshop to make sure I get things in the right spot and in relation to other things for the initial draw in. Working from life though, it's just using your brush to measure, place things in the right spot and check angles. Old school. I don't know another way. Other than sometimes squinting at the subject helps me see angles and such easier. Backing up can help you too. Great video!

It is generous of you to share the advice that you still struggle with certain elements of painting. Thank you for another valuable lesson.

Thank you Florent. Another insightful video. 🙌

You know a thanks is in order 🙏

Absolutely excellent, intelligent and helpful. Generally you encourage and facilitate an attitude towards painting that I find echoes strongly in me as I go through those periods of anguish trying to do the best paintings I can. Thank you from me too for your generosity.

You're 100% right about David Hackney.

I just LOVE your technique, your philosophy, your paintings... your teaching is much like mine. you are inspirational

Most of the time when artists, or anyone for that matter struggle, is because they do not have a clear idea, their own idea, of what they want. Art, it has been said, reflects life. The artist who paints everyday is confronted everyday with a myriad of decision making opportunities. Knowing what you want is key to making better decisions. A professor of mine once said: fuzzy writing is a sign of fuzzy thinking. I am still working on it, especially when it comes to paint on the tip of a brush.

The painting is not finished, but it is already beautiful 👏👏👏

Merci beaucoup !

The proper planning tip is why I like to spend a lot of time making the best sketch in a digital drawing program I can that I'll print out and trace onto the canvas/paper. However, I get the feeling that there are skills that I am missing out on if I depend on this method, but I am not too sure what they could be. Trusting my eyes to be accurate in a spontaneous setting maybe? I'm not sure. I just know that I can eventually make a sketch I want but fear even just the idea of doing it spontaneously.

Brilliant video and great advice. Painting from photos that have not been taken specifically for that purpose is usually hard; looking at the camera, flash gun light and few shadows. I don't like portraits that stare back at me when I am painting 😐 ! Hockney proved conclusively what we already knew...he can't draw. Does he think that Leonardo invented the Polaroid camera (after the helicopter...) ? I now have some short term memort issues; I pick up paint from the pallette and have forgotten either what it is or where it was going by the time it gets to the canvas...frustrating. 'chunking' the painting is the answer. Few colours on the pallette and work on one area. (You have to play with the cards you are dealt.)

Many thanks for another valuable teaching video! Thank you Florent!!

Thanks for your videos.

Love this video! Great tips, thank you. Definitely want to give the grisaille method a try. I find putting together a good reference for a fantasy image difficult. I have a theme in my head I’d like to work out but find myself avoiding gathering references, using excuses like ‘you paint other themes usually’ or ‘you don’t know how to paint smoke’ or ‘why not focus on painting looser instead of such a personal theme’ etc. There is so much I can learn that I find I focus on these easier ‘other things’. Procrastination pur sang.

Great information! I personally like to go one step at a time. I definitely feel more distracted when I go here and there 😅 especially with multiple figures and background details. The overall process could be difficult and frustrating but it's 💯 worth it! Thanks for sharing!

You are extremely talented and knowledgeable.

Thank you so much for your help 🙏 I find a plumbing and mirror essential to "see"

Great video as usual. Thank you. I've noticed that at this time of the year you are wearing a padded jacket and fingerless gloves. What is the temperature in your studio and is is a deliberate thing to assist with how the paint reacts.

Amazing 👍

Excellent~~~~

I love it. Thank you Florent!

Absolutely Beautiful art work... Thumbs up

Grisaille…True about getting distracted by color choices. Personally i still draw my portrait before painting over that with shading and important bits maintain likeness….likeness….likenesss. Forever a beginner…..maybe advanced beginner. Professional Artist. True. NOT me! Ha ha. I have always had an aversion to work. And hard work, which is actually the most satisfying ( pulling 8 foot tall thistles), has to take a bigger motivator behind it….and well yes I totally understand how much hard work goes in to great art. Even if the artist has a natural talent for spatial relationships and color etc….that so called inspiration comes from a deep subconscious while the rest is technical. Sometimes there are moments of fluidity that seems to be devine. Its usually becuse you have practised properly and done the WORK first. Devine is in everything really. Art is a good expression of it. Music and other creative stuff….some fancy maths etc…so glad you’re still making videos. I go in and out. A bad thing to do i know. Retards progress, makes things feel more frustrating than needed, and is just wrong….my main lesson to learn! In fact its like me. I was often not engaged with life. Its the whole package as they say…..dong something creative and being engaged like you said….the “passion” i will say at 70 my passion is definitely wavering and in fact i spent most my adult life trying to kill it because it can make you nuts! And you do get “ Is that all there is? “ vibe running thru everything. becoming a master at something is hard work. I suggest taking a course in learning strategies for adults. It results i. Something like “Make a plan. Silence the witches. Do it.” Its the witches in every walk of life that need a lot of honest evaluation, commitment to resolve their wonky messages and dedication to see it through. So much easier said than done

Sometimes I believe I have found a better understanding of the subject when I see it from different angles, but the reference is crucial to portrait. Knowing the subject helps to understand the flat face of the reference in question. Photos lie to us in that there is foreshortening, oddball color shifts, shadows, and overall flat view to rely on for what is there.

When I was younger I worked at an art gallery. We had one artist that relied on the projector. The manager pointed out to me that the projector would distort the picture as if it stretched out the outer 1/3 of the painting. I don’t remember anyone with an untrained eye catching it and I wonder if it only did that to the larger paintings. It was about 20X30 without the frame.

Love your videos, thank you!

Merci!

Loved this video!

Thank you for this video Florent. As far as using aids or tools as the ones you mentioned...this is always a debatable topic.... and coming from an artist such as myself... Yes, I do benefit from the 'tools' you talked about and how they are used and I do NOT consider it 'cheating'. However, I also admit that although the tools are helpful to speed up the process or to make proportions and representations more accurate...I do admit that it can take away from the 'building' of the artwork or the development of it taking place in the mind and heart that relies on the information gained during the process to work out the problems. I also don't feel it's 'cheating' the viewers of the final artwork during the production as suggested by some people and the process still takes talent and skill. But for ME, sometimes the 'aid' of such tools can seem to create too much of an artificial look rather than something organic or natural. I'll still use tools beyond the raw materials in ways I feel is useful to me and that sometimes includes doing so in order to gain the feeling of not getting frustrated while I work as another aid to the process! haha. I believe that true 'art' comes from inside each creator or from 'within' meaning it first starts from the spirit or the soul. The other form of source is from 'without' meaning the source comes from external objects or idea that cause doing too much copying or tracing.. in a way of 'without' the spirt or soul. Perhaps there's a balance of source that is unique to each person/creator and therefore this topic should not be argued as if any one way or another is best for everyone? For anyone that considers the use of any tool or aid as being 'wrong', then are they just finger-painting? Brushes are tools. Lighting is a tool. Sound can be a tool. @FlorentVargesArts KZfaq Channel is also a tool... and a GREAT one! Keep up the great work and thanks again!✌🏻❤🎨🧑🏻‍🎨

Getting good at portrait painting will be the death of me....ho hum.

My biggest problem is working my materials - having enough paint on the palette and sometimes grabbing colors that are not correct - I paint usually en plein air

Well. Those David Hockney portraits about gave me cancer, makes me more self conscious about my own work to not suck that bad.

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I am really good at starting paintings. I am good at drawing and laying down paint...but then I get a bit lost in detail and consistency in color tones. I suppose I just have to forge ahead and keeping working at it. My finished product looks pretty good, but not really the work of art I had in mind.

I want to take your course but I am nowhere near there yet.

Hi, i am following your tutorials quite sometime, could you pls tell me why my grid lines are showing up and how can i cover them

And it goes to the other side but in reverse

Thank you could you send me A link to the head visors you are using

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Hello. What did you use for the background and the sketch? Oil or acrylic?

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Are there links in the comments? I don't understand all English 🙂

You're not cheating yourself if you're using it b one tools to check the work you've already done

What I perceive from Hockney is someone who has not developed good taeste and does not enjoy his results becuase he can´t properly communicate his personal taste through technique. He is what you could call, with all due respect, a hacker. Someone who got to a level of skill, did not push through the plateaus and just gave up, claiming it is impossible and if he could not, the others must be cheating. I feel he could have beneffitted from learning at an attellier like Watts, where I would personally choose to study if I were at the states, where people show their students in real time how they are achieving a likeness through good construction skills and with a live model, observation and demonstration with questions answered then and there, with exercises for you to practice for the next few years and throughout your lifetime as an artist.

Hockney uses only acrylics too from what i have read, so he maybe more focused on quantity than quality.....once you get famous you can sell any art good or bad for tons of cash...

Really hate title like this… try to find something interesting on your channel but it’s hard when you keep naming like this. Anyway l really like you content