I don't use any measuring or any other technique (as far as I know). I just observe the face carefully and pay attention to the distances between different parts of the face. I had done about a dozen of pencil portraits before I started painting in oil. That helps a lot. In the meantime I've figured out it's better to do photos with the light source from just one side so I can get interesting shadows to paint or draw. Basically, I try to just paint exactly what I see. And not paint what I don't see. Because I like stuff to look realistic. When I get bored with this, I will start painting differently.

Above are portraits of my dad, my ex boss, my ex boyfriend and of course, Johnny Depp. Johnny is hanging on my friend's wall. It's good to take pictures of stuff before it's gone. It takes me about two hours to do a pencil portrait. There's room for improvement but I prefer doing oil portraits. I'm looking at a photo of the subject as I'm drawing. I was asked to sit for a portrait twice in my life. The first time I even tried but it seems I just don't have what it takes to be able to sit still for hours. It's hard. That's why I don't want to ask anyone to sit for me.

These were my first finished portraits. On the first one, I originally painted puffy clouds in the background but I wasn't happy with them so I wiped them off. And then I tried a few more times before I finally decided to just forget about clouds and wrap it up. I am happy with the clouds I've painted on two huge walls in a B&B in Las Palmas, which you can see if you click on See my other stuff.

Some of the portraits above are still unfinished. I moved again and couldn't bring them with me but I will get back to them. Another reason I like oil paints is because I have to wait for some parts of a painting to dry before going on so I work simultaneously on at least four different paintings. When I finally get to it. Which I love because I don't get tired of working on the same painting for a long time. I think it's fun to see the different stages of painting.

I've been painting for about two weeks and, of course, I haven't finished a single painting but I started and improved a few. I had to leave them unfinished because I got a two week job on a yacht in Italy. After that I'm moving to Barcelona for a few months at least so who knows when these are gonna be finished. Here they are below: