30 Faces 30 Days Portrait Painting Challenge

I have no idea why I signed up for the Sktchy #30faces30days portrait painting challenge. Well, I sort of know. I had been working on a formal portrait and felt like I was painting too “tight”. The best way for me to loosen up is to paint fast – really fast. The only problem is that I’m a super slowpoke painter.

Portrait Painting Challenge Collage

9 of the paintings from the 30 faces 30 days portrait painting challenge.

I’ve completed fourteen of the thirty faces in the painting challenge so far. For this article I’ll only be reviewing nine of the paintings. I’ll review other works in future posts. You can find the original photos at the bottom of this post.

Day 1 Of The Portrait Painting Challenge

The first day was definitely a challenge for me. I’ve never painted a partially shaved head before or a Mohawk. After I signed up for the Sktchy painting challenge, the deal was that they’d send a photo every morning to paint. When I opened the email for this one I

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How To Paint A Sphynx Cat In Oil Step-By-Step

How To Paint A Hairless Sphynx Cat

How To Paint A Hairless Sphynx Cat

I don’t know what it is about a hairless Sphynx cat that I find so fascinating, but I’ve always wanted to paint one. At first I thought they were so ugly they were cute, but now I only see how beautiful and interesting they are.

How To Paint A Sphynx Cat In Oil On Canvas, Step-By-Step

Below is my portrait of “Harry” the hairless Sphynx cat which technically is still unfinished, but I’m not sure if I’ll ever finish it. If I do, there will be an update to this post in the future!

How To Paint A Sphynx cat in oil – "Harry" by Shelley Hanna

Sphynx cat “Harry” near completion

My Approach To Painting Harry, The Hairless Sphynx Cat

I took photos and a few videos while painting this portrait thinking I would put together a “how to” guide like I did for my painting of Chewy, but it was a lot of work and not many

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How To Start Oil Painting Without Getting Discouraged

You know what it’s like – you want to start oil painting and get your canvas and paints out. The excitement builds and fantasies about how fantastic it’s going to turn out from in your mind. It’s a glorious dream before the actual work begins.

How to start oil painting without getting discouraged

Then reality sets in. The dog throws up. A hangnail needs immediate attention. Ummm, how did this much laundry accumulate? TAXES. It’s one distraction after another. If you’re finding it hard to get started, you may be succumbing to resistance.

Fear not! Resistance Is Part Of The Creative Process

Whether you think of yourself as an artist or not, you are a creative being and go through

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Painting On The iPad Using ArtRage – It’s Fine Art On-The-Go

Painting On The iPad Using ArtRage – It's Fine Art On-The-Go pin 1

Painting On The iPad Using ArtRage – It's Fine Art On-The-Go pin 2

So far this year, I’ve been painting on the iPad using ArtRage in between working on larger oil painting projects. I love the immediacy of digital painting and I can paint even when there is little to no good light to work with, which is a challenge when creating traditional paintings during the winter months or on dreary days.

Painting On The iPad Using ArtRage – It’s Fine Art On-The-Go

The Teacup Challenge

“Teatime” is a painting on the iPad I started over a month ago using ArtRage. It was a more complicated painting which took me longer than usual to complete. I painted it whenever I had

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What Is The Purpose Of Painting A Still Life?

For most of my artistic life I’ve wondered what the purpose of painting a still life was. In school, I found them to be the most boring subjects of all and a waste of time. They felt painful to work on and I had a lot of resistance to drawing and painting them. Portraits were my sweet spot and I loved the challenge of capturing someone’s essence on canvas.

What is the purpose of painting a still life

Things started to change for me this year when I took up painting again. I knew I would be staying home more because both of my dogs were very ill and I needed

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Painting Dog Portraits & The Gifts Dogs Give Us Unconditionally

Painting dog portraits is something I’ve done for as long as I can remember. Last weekend I continued working on my digital painting skills by doing this portrait of a dog named Scoby.

Painting dog portraits & the gifts dogs give us unconditionally

If you’ve ever had kombucha, you may understand his name a little better. His momma, Donna Schwenk, is the founder of Cultured Food Life and is a

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Learning How To Do Fine Art Painting Using Procreate And ArtRage

I’m finally learning how to do fine art painting using Procreate and ArtRage with the iPad Pro. I resisted getting an iPad for SO LONG and was one of those traditional snobs who thought “digital art wasn’t real art”. BUT, the world is changing and my mind is changing regarding the subject. Bottom line, I’m coming to realize there is a definitely a place for digital art in today’s world.

painting using procreate and artrage

Painting Using Procreate And ArtRage – Is It  Cheating?

To me I thought it was too easy to cheat or difficult to do very “painterly” art digitally based on some of the work I’ve seen out there. However, there are a lot of ways to

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