Tutorial: Paint a Portrait in the Style of Bouguereau with Corel Painter
May 5th, 2009 | Published in Featured, Tutorials | 13 Comments
The Nut Gatherers, by William-Adolphe Bouguereau, 1882. Oil on canvas.
At the height of his career, William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1825–1905) was considered to be one of the greatest painters in the world by the Academic art community. His almost photo-realistic style was popular with rich art patrons. Until just recently, Bouguereau and his Academic contemporaries had been mostly forgotten. During the 20th century, their work was completely eclipsed by the French Impressionists, such as Monet and Degas. Today there is renewed interest and appreciation in Bouguereau’s work.
Recently, I found the following stock photo on Fotolia, which is a terrific stock photography site. The subject of this photo, wearing a bandana and a greenish-yellow jumper, reminded me of the children dressed as gypsies that Bouguereau so often painted. I thought I’d try to paint this photo in the style of Bouguereau.
A stock photo from Fotolia.com.
First, I began hunting through the hundreds of paintings by Bouguereau hosted on the Art Renewal Center website. There are quite a few portraits of young girls in country garb, done mostly in a three-quarter view. Basically what I was looking for was a background with a good match for coloring. Also, I was hoping to find something better for my subject to sit on, other than the stump in the photo. I found the following painting, which seemed to be a good fit. The subject in the painting has very nearly the same pose, down to the way her toes are bent. She’s even wearing a yellow scarf!
Meditation, by William-Adolphe Bouguereau, 1885. Oil on canvas.
The yellows and greens will be a perfect match for my subject, once I change the color of her jumper a bit. By using an analogous color scheme (colors close together on the color wheel), I’m hoping to lend a harmonious, restful feeling to my painting. This is part of the “look” of Bouguereau’s work. I’ll need to make the stone block a bit shorter, since my subject is much younger. Here’s what my background looks like after cloning out the original subject (most of her, anyway).
Here's the painting after cloning out the subject, and altering the size of the stone block.
Next, I very carefully removed the background from the stock photo. After copying and pasting it onto a layer above the background just created, above, I saw I’d need to paint the shadow under her feet, since they were in a different position. Then I made some color adjustments to her jumper, removing the green, added a touch of shadow along her jumper, and it was ready to go in Painter.
Stock photo composited with painting background, ready for Painter.
Starting with a Quick Clone, I used a Captured Bristle with a large brush size to “block in” the entire image. Here’s a close-up showing how rough it looks at this point.
Large size brushes are used to block in the major masses of color.
The scarf is a modern-day bandana, so I decided to paint a scarf similar to the one in the original painting. I sampled color with the eye dropper from the Bouguereau, and painted freehand to create the feeling of a pattern. The face is pretty much a straight clone from the photo. The loose hairs were added last, using a Cover Pencil at about 9 pixels, and then blended a bit with a Soft Charcoal with 0 percent Resat.
Close-up of the final painting, showing the brushwork on the scarf and the loose hairs.
Using a smaller brush size, I went back over the entire background, pulling in more detail from the original. The dress, apple, and other details are a combination straight clone and freehand painting. Bouguereau’s painting style was very “tight,” so I tried to mimic that high degree of finish. Here’s the final painting.
Girl With an Apple, in the style of Bougeureau. Created with Corel Painter by Bob Nolin.
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Stumble it!
May 6th, 2009 at 1:39 am (#)
Your painting was done very nicely.
Madge
May 6th, 2009 at 7:41 am (#)
Hey…this a great work!
Jordan
May 6th, 2009 at 7:41 am (#)
“is,” I meant.
May 6th, 2009 at 8:42 am (#)
youyr tutorials are always wonderful. Thank you.
May 6th, 2009 at 9:47 am (#)
Thank you all for the nice comments! I really appreciate it.
-Bob
May 6th, 2009 at 10:44 am (#)
Your tutorial is very helpful. More shadows to create contrast and also more complementary colors would have enhanced even more your painting. IMHO.
May 6th, 2009 at 4:21 pm (#)
Great tutorial.
thank you,
May 12th, 2009 at 5:30 pm (#)
Bob your tutorial are always very illustrative. I added your gallery in my gallery at Corel Painter Magazine it is an honour for me. Thank you.
May 12th, 2009 at 5:32 pm (#)
I forgot to tell you my gallery.
http://www.paintermagazine.co.uk/user/mcm
Pls if you have a chance take a look at it, and your comments are welcome.
May 12th, 2009 at 8:13 pm (#)
Carlos –
Thanks for the kind words. Always nice to hear! I did check out your wonderful work over at the Corel Painter gallery. You’re doing some good stuff there! I left a comment on the portrait of Carlos Antulio. Beautiful job. Thanks again for commenting!
Happy painting –
Bob
PS – I am honored by the gallery link. Thank you!
December 25th, 2009 at 10:55 pm (#)
I love that painting! Beautiful. But your tutorial must be more for people who know what their doing! I’ve just started, (basically I’m clueless) I need lots more detail of how to do what. How did you clear it up after it was a bit rough as you say??
December 26th, 2009 at 6:27 pm (#)
This is terrible on so many levels. Copyrighted? So many references to “my painting”? You did what exactly that would qualify this as original? I’m sorry, but using an artists backgrounds for your own does not qualify the statement “in the style of”. Nor does scaling/cloning elements and applying filters qualify “painting this photo”. The girl appears to be 8 feet tall because you killed the scale. The worst part about this is that it’s a tutorial churn out more of the same cut-n-paste crap rather than an encouragement for people to leverage off of these tools to bring something new to the table. This isn’t even collage. It’s the opposite of creativity.
December 26th, 2009 at 8:32 pm (#)
I’m wondering why someone from Dreamworks would bother to stop by my little blog and drop off such a load of harsh invective. As it says on the front page of my blog, I do photo painting for portrait photographers. My goal here is to show photographers how I can help them increase their bottom line by creating unique (or at least different) products to sell their customers. For photographers who want to do this on their own, I believe this tutorial is helpful. I’m sharing my knowledge and, frankly, trying to promote my business. In light of that, I’m really confused by your comment, Bert. I mean, as someone who works for Dreamworks, you must know all about doing commercial work. I wouldn’t think anyone would confuse what either you or I do with real Art. This is just business.