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.

A portrait of a friend	My first attempt on a portrait	Not handsome yet
A Portrait of a Handsome Guy	Nice eyes	Ugly eyebrow
No eyebrow	Eyebrow redone	Rubia
Unfinished Angelina	Angelina with birds	A Selfie
Wrong background

My dad	A portrait of an Actor
Il Siciliano	Padron

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:

The dress I was looking at a photo of Angelina Jolie while painting this. I changed the color of the dress.	The Smile I painted her eyes a bit too wide apart in this one.	Angelina With A Bee I painted this one in a hostel in Barcelona.
Angelina With Poultry Finally finished! I hope. This is my first or second portrait painting. I put most of my favorite subjects in it; Angelina, ostrich, hen and clouds.	The huge bug 1 I gotta do the legs and that's it	The huge bug 2 In The huge bug 1 I actually painted a huge bug. Which should be hung on the wall to the left of this one.
The huge bug 2 Close up.	Jane The June Bug It goes together with the autoportrait with a bug killer spray. I changed the name after I finished both paintings.	20150102_114354.jpg
Rubia Rubia got a bee. Gotta do some more work on the bee's shadow. The woman in the painting reminds me of my mom when she was younger. I didn't have a photo reference while painting this one.	unnamed Work in progress	still no name Terrible hair. Hair takes a lot of effort to do. And I didn't have time.
Not named yet He got some proper rainy clouds. I will probably work on his tux more and add an insect of some sort to add color.	Mira The Bee Still unfinished. Not happy with the tux.	Mona Lisa in progress The background took me ages although it seems so easy to paint. I don't know where in Italy this jungle is supposed to be but I really wished Mr da Vinci had sat miss Lisa in a corner of a room or somewhere less wild-backgroundy.
Mona Lisa and the fly Fly coming up when I come back from Barcelona. The finished version of this painting is on the Recent work page. At the end it was cockrach on her nose. I would like to paint some eyebrows on her because I read that original Mona LIsa had thick eyebrows, thinning towards the sides. The way a contemporary described her doesn't match it's appearance today. I guess it faded.