Black and White Oil Portraits

Pet Portrait Art

Here are some of the black and white portraits I completed last week.

First, if the client’s image had a very busy background behind the subject, I replaced it with a more simple design. A gradient background often works well with a light and dark end to simulate a light source in the environment.

Next, I would I take the client’s image, often a small image, and enlarged it in a plug-in for Photoshop that enlarges images. It is often very blocky and pixelated looking, but it is certainly a good starting place for a digital painting.

Next, I would take the image and apply a camera raw feature inside of Photoshop. I turned the image into a monochromatic image. It is easy to increase the contrast between the black and the white. It really livens up the image.

The following step was where I applied the oil paint filter in Photoshop instead of hand painting my image.

In the final step, I would make minor adjustments, if necessary, and email the completed piece to my client.