Was reading about the concept of "painterly" painting. It's loose and expressive and not very literal; in fact, some painterly effects are almost accidental and magical--they look remarkably realistic from a distance, but completely random and blotchy up close. I wanted to try a more painterly approach today. First, I took off my glasses; this seemed easier than squinting the whole time, and also uncluttered my face. Next, I used a large flat brush for nearly everything, and used only a slightly smaller flat for a few details. (No fine detail brushes, riggers, etc., were used at all.) Finally, I aimed to leave the brush-strokes as visible as possible, with little or no blending. The colors are also rather wacky, not at all as realistic as I would normally use. The end result is not terribly flattering, but does look surprisingly like me, in a crude way.
