To become a portrait artist, refine artistic skills through classes and practice, create a portfolio of best work, and find potential clients through advertising. Portraiture was popular with royalty and the wealthy before photography.
To become a portraitist, you must have some intrinsic artistic ability or interest. This doesn’t mean you have to be born with amazing artistic abilities, but you should become a better artist. You will likely need to practice a lot to become the best artist you can be, so having a desire to draw or paint makes this practice easier. After enough practice, you can become a portrait artist by creating a body of work, finding potential clients, painting portraits, and receiving adequate compensation for your work.
A portrait artist is someone who draws, paints or visually creates artistic representations of a person’s image or portrait. Before the advent of photography, this type of artwork was quite popular with royalty and the wealthy as it allowed them to adorn their homes with images of themselves. Although it may not be as popular as it once was, there is still a desire among many people to create portraits of their image, and once you become a portrait artist, you can provide this service.
One of the first steps you should take in becoming a portrait artist is to practice and refine your own artistic ability. You might want to take art classes, especially ones that focus on drawing or painting people. While life drawing classes in which you draw live subjects can be especially helpful in understanding human body proportions and how to capture a person’s shape and movement, you should look for classes in portraiture or similar subjects. You might even consider receiving a degree in fine art or a similar field to help you become a portraitist.
When your skills are refined enough and you feel ready to become a portrait artist and create works of art from live subjects, you will probably want to create a portfolio of your work. You should only select your best work for this as you want to demonstrate your skills. It can be helpful to work on the sizes you plan to offer, and consider focusing on standard sizes that will be easier to matte and frame.
You must find potential clients who want to commission portraits from you, based on the work in your portfolio. This can be difficult at first, but try advertising your services in local newspapers or on the Internet. You may need to be persistent in your efforts and probably charge a fairly low price at first, but as your work becomes more refined and your portfolio grows, you will have more opportunities. Make sure you don’t lower the value, however, as you should still be confident in your abilities and know that you have the talent to become a portrait artist.
Protect your devices with Threat Protection by NordVPN