Advisor: Jason Paradis

Trial on B&W Oil Portraiture

I took a half-length portrait as my reference to create a series of works with a clean background and facial details that can express figures’ emotions clearly. I only used black and white oil paints in this series of portrait oil paintings, with the purpose of exploring “the possibility of using B&W oil paint”, “the feasibility of strong contrast in B&W oil paintings” and “the difference of details between oil painting art and photographs”.

During the process of painting and communication with the professor, I realized how the importance of the degree of gray in B&W oil painting is. How to make the picture more three-dimensional through the seemingly simple black and white is the difficulty I have been overcoming. Moreover, I realized that the edges between the figure and background are obvious in digital photos. But it’s a little different in oil painting. The edges of the figure need to be blended in with the background to some extent. So that the relationship between the two doesn’t seem too abrupt.