Portrait Painting is an art which many would-be painters would like to tackle, whether they be amateurs or beginning students with professional aspirations. This is but natural, for a majority of us are far more interested in people than in landscape or baskets of fruit, and we prefer to paint the subjects which appeal to us the most. One can get a real thrill from creating on canvas a colorful likeness of his mother, his Uncle John, or his sweetheart across the street. And these sitters can share in the painter's enthusiasm; they are participants in his exciting pictorial adventures. Sales may be made, also, to inflate the painter's ego as well as his wallet; they may even lead to a lucrative and satisfying professional career.

All too often, however, beginners deliberately stifle their bent in this direction, not from choice but under the mistaken impression that to produce satisfactory portraits is prohibitively difficult—that to be successful one needs some unusual kind or degree of talent. Even without giving portraiture a fair trial, they therefore turn to other subjects mainly because they believe that these subjects lie more within their capacities.

These qualms about portraiture are as unfortunate as they are unfounded. The fact is—as proven again and again—that any beginner possessing even a modicum of inborn ability is soon able, once he has cleared the first hurdles, to produce portraits of acceptable quality. A surprisingly large number of those who work with perseverance eventually turn out superlative work.

Hence, this present book should prove very welcome, for it shows one how to clear these first hurdles. And it provides this guidance through what we believe to be the most simple, practical and easily applied approach ever to appear in print.

The author, John Pratten, has for years presented this method both in his own classes and before art groups all up and down the Atlantic Seaboard. With unusual skill he has stripped the subject of portraiture to its true essentials, demonstrating these with such clarity and conciseness that his students have been able to grasp them quickly and apply them effectively to their own work. It is a pleasure, through this book, to make these essentials available to a vastly enlarged audience.

In preparing Portrait Painting for Beginners, it has been the author's aim (as he states in his following Introduction) to approximate as closely as possible the procedure which he has used so effectively in the classroom and on the platform. By means of step-by-step demonstrations—each fully illustrated with progressive paintings made for the purpose (and with the finished results printed in natural color)—the reader learns precisely how to go about portraying the man, the woman, the child; the blonde, the brunette and the outdoor type.

In other words, in writing this book, Pratten has extracted the essence of knowledge gained through a broad and lengthy experience as painter and teacher, and, mainly through an exposition of three "key palettes," has put this essence into simple form for easy perusal, rapid assimilation, and efficacious adaptation. Even the professional, troubled at times with interpreting the subtle nuances of living human flesh, has often found these keys most helpful.

We present this stimulating and informative book with the sincere hope that to many an individual it will literally serve as the key to open wide the door to many months—yes, years—of rewarding endeavor!

Are You Ready To Move Onto The Next Lesson? Click Here...