I turned 70 years old this week, and, just as I did when I turned 60, I am embarking on a painting skill-building project for the year. I want to improve my portrait drawing and painting skills, so, over the year, I plan to create 70 small (8x8 or 10x10) portraits inspired by the method presented by American painter Steve Forster in his 2025 book Painting Luminous Portraits for Artists (Quarto Publishing Group). Forster’s approach is the French ebauche (meaning ‘rough draft’ or ‘first pass’) in which a full value charcoal drawing is sealed and then painted over with layers of oil paint.
But where to find 70 models willing to sit for portraits or photo sessions? In this age of artificial intelligence, the answer to this dilemma was easy. I used an AI software program called Midjourney to generate over 200 possible portrait images by prompting it with specifics about gender, age, ethnicity, expression, and lighting.
So here we go! One to two paintings a week should keep me moving toward my goal. Here’s #1, a handsome young Maasai man that Midjourney conjured up for me. It was a great exercise in mixing the right colours to capture his glowing dark skin. A good first attempt, I think!
Here’s the Midjourney image
I drew the image by using the grid method, then completed it as a full-value charcoal drawing
Here’s the first pass in oil…
And the final image (#1, oil on paper, 8x8)