Art teacher told me to stop blending so much, I ignored her for 6 months

My college painting professor kept saying my digital portraits looked like plastic because I was over-blending every skin transition. I thought smooth was better, so I kept doing it for half a year. Finally tried a piece where I left hard edges and visible brush strokes, and it actually looked like a real person. That piece got into a student showcase and two people asked if I switched to oil paints. Anyone else have advice that made zero sense until you actually tried it?

4 comments

4 Comments

marybutler7d ago

That's actually a great question because I wonder what finally clicked for you to even try leaving hard edges. Was there a specific tutorial or artist you saw that made you think "okay maybe she was onto something"?

troyknight7d ago

Oh man, that whole "stop blending" thing is brutal because it feels wrong at first. What finally got me was doing a study of a Francis Bacon painting where everything is all smeared and distorted on purpose. I realized the hard edges and rough strokes actually give the viewer's eye something to grab onto instead of just sliding off a smooth surface. So I did a portrait where I left the jawline really sharp and the hair as big chunks of color with zero blending between them. It looked like a mess while I was working on it but when I stepped back the whole face popped in a way my blended stuff never did. Sometimes you gotta just crank something ugly on purpose to see what happens.

alicer536d ago

Funny how we all circle around Bacon as the go-to for this stuff... @holly709 you're right that his work is harsh, but I think the key isn't the distortion itself. It's that he leaves things unfinished in ways that force your brain to work. My lightbulb moment came from watching how my youngest kid draws. She'll draw a face with two dots for eyes and a curved line for a mouth - zero detail - and somehow it looks more alive than my careful shaded portraits. There's something about leaving gaps for the viewer to fill in that makes faces feel real. Maybe the ugliness is just a side effect of giving the eye something to solve.

holly7096d ago

Not sure I totally agree with @troyknight on the Francis Bacon thing. His work is so intentionally harsh and distorted, feels like a different goal than what most portrait painters are going for. I think you can still get that pop without making everything look purposely ugly.