REFERENCE

For some reason I felt more drawn to the film version of the painting than the original Vermeer painting itself. Maybe it was the difference in the girl's expression, the slightly different angle, or just the clarity of the film version's shot. In any case, it shouldn't really matter. I chose this picture.

In that sense, I respecitvely did not want to re-produce Vermeer's mastery, but try and recreate what touched me about this particular image.

Photo Credits:
Scarlett Johansson, Girl With A Pearl Earring. Lion's Gate Films. - All Rights Reserved.

STEP 01

Opening a new canvas, I've chosen a very dark blue for the background. This may sound strange, but on a black background this will appear like a very dark red-brown.

Next I added a new layer, and using a very small hard round paintbrush scribbled the sketch. Whether you just start drawing, or feel more confident with using any kind of reference lines for the facial features, is irrelevant - do what you feel most comfortable with doing.

As for the sometimes frowned upon tracing of image outlines, I do not discourage it, although freehand reference sketching trains the eye and is always good practice, especially for beginners. Tracing of the outlines doesn't mean you'll get a perfect end result - it plainely saves time in the first stage. Afterall, it isn't the sketch that determines the finished result, but the way something is painted. And believe me when I say that even though you may have perfectly traced the outlines, you can still screw it up during the painting process.

STEP 02

To begin with I added a second layer underneath the sketch layer - I prefer to not paint directly on the background, even when it is such a plain background as it is here.

Using a big hard round brush at 100% opacity (with Opacity Jitter switched to pen pressure), I block in the main colours. If you use a photo reference as I did here, I suggest you not pick the colours from the photo with the colour picker, since the colours in photos usually are not what they seem to be. So, better try and actually see the colours, and choose them yourself in the colour pallette.

For each "item" in the portrait I used between two and four colours for now, to get a vague idea of the values and volumes. Since I already know there won't be any background as such, I can let the dark of the background work for me and let it shine through in places.

Although the brush strokes are very rough, they follow the lines of the surface of the face, scarf and clothing. I do this to already give it a first hint of volume. If you don't quite know what I mean by this, here is a graphic of it using the reference picture for more clarity, as well as so you may see that the "lines" are actually visible in non-painted pictures.

STEP 03

I selected a slightly smaller brush, as well as reduced my opacity settings slightly (go with what works best for you), and continued to work on the face - still broadly, as you can see.

Make sure that you keep a balance in the colours you use. What makes this piece what it is is the light (coming from the left), so using "skin colours" from only one range of colours would end up making it look dull and flat. To prevent this, don't be shy to use the colours that you actually can see in the reference, such as deep red-browns, purples and blues for the shadows and bright yellows for the highlights.

For me personally her lips were the most important thing, so I set to refine them just a touch more than any other of her features.

You may also notice that I had not yet painted in the earring - I wanted to leave it for last, so I wouldn't have any problems painting and refining her neck and earlobe.

At this stage I felt confident enough about it and reduced the opacity of the sketch layer, so I could actually see what was going on in her face as I was painting.

A small tip: even with a good sketch, never stop looking at the reference if you want it to be as close to the original as possible.

STEP 04

Continuing with the face, I refined it even more. Eyes, nose, lips, as well as the shadowed cheek and her neck. Again I went down in opacity with my brush, which remains the hard round paint brush. Also, I fixed the outline of the face on the left (brow and cheek).

When painting eyes, beginners often make the mistake of seeing them as something that's just almond-shaped, all white around the iris. Eyes are orbs, and it is visible through the highlights on them, which usually follow the curve of the eyeball (the same goes for the lids). Also, the "white" of the eye is not really white, but varies with the light. Here is is mainly light blue, red-grey and purple-grey. On top of that, the iris itself is not a circle in the surface of the eye, but a convex shape on the surface of the eyeball, and this usually makes for some interestingly warped highlights. =]

Lips are another sore point with many: instead of brushing horizontally, make use of the lines on the lips, which run vertically and usually define the lip shape quite nicely.

Keeping this in mind will give the face not only volume through good colour and placement of highlight and shadow, but also through the brush strokes themselves.

STEP 05

I kept working on refining the chin, lips and shape of the nose, going into more detail now with smaller brushes.

Then I moved on to the jawline and neck again - the shadow - and blocked in the piece of headscarf by her neck in a very dark blue.

You may notice that I blocked in the headscarf piece with criss cross lines, instead of just strokes that follow one set direction. I did this to get the first idea of the weave of the fabric, which will later be repeated on the other parts of the blue scarf.

During these first stages of the painting process I increase and reduce the opacity of the sketch layer as I need it, and will continue to do so. This is personal preference, so you may or may not want to do the same.

Another thing that you may or may not want to do is add a new layer over the portrait layer, when you are happy with the painting as it is at that point. Then when you have painted some more and are satisfied with it, merge the two layers to keep the file size down (don't flatten the image though!), then add another new one, and so on. And don't forget to save the picture regularly - you wouldn't want to lose it all in case something goes wrong!