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How To Pose Your Model for a Portrait

If someone asks you about the most difficult genre of oil painting, portrait will probably be your first guess. Painting portraits doesn’t only require knowledge of color mixing and composition building, but also the ability to pose models to advantage so as to emphasize their strong sides and mask their drawbacks.

How To Pose Your Model for a Portrait

The challenge of portrait painting


If someone asks you about the most difficult genre of oil painting, portrait will probably be your first guess. Painting portraits doesn’t only require knowledge of color mixing and composition building, but also the ability to pose models to advantage so as to emphasize their strong sides and mask their drawbacks. This part can be especially tricky for novices. In this article, we will tell you a few secrets that will greatly facilitate this challenging process.

Useful tips

  • - If you are painting a full-body portrait, make sure your model stands straight, with their head and chest somewhat lifted. And please no slouching shoulders and dangling arms! Otherwise a person in the picture will end up looking clumsy and ‘boxy.’

 

  • - Aim the model’s hips, shoulders and face in different directions. That will add dynamics and spontaneity to the portrait. For instance, you can place the left hip slightly back while moving the shoulder a bit forward.

 

  • - Another important thing is to create some space between the body and the arms. To emphasize the model’s waist, get them to bend an elbow. Flexed knees, elbows and wrists will also make the image more energetic.

 

  • - Shifting weight to one leg is a great trick that will allow you to create a wide range of appealing compositions and make the pose more ‘shapely.’  The person in the portrait will also look less flat-footed.

 

  • - Sometimes people feel tense when asked to take a certain pose ‘off the top of their head.’ In that cast, it would be a nice idea to add a prop so that your model could lean against it and relax.

 

  • - The expression of your model’s face is also highly important to produce the necessary effect. The closer your ‘focus’ is, the more significance is attributed to the person’s facial expression. To prevent a vacant expression, try some minor tweaks – a tipped hear or a bit lifted eyebrow will generally be enough.

 

As you can see, choosing the right pose for your portrait model isn’t such a big deal if you know which effect you want to achieve. Remember that pose is crucial for your future work, so don’t be sorry to spend some extra time getting it straight!

 

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