On the example of one of my successful portraits, I will tell you how to create paintings with a person as a central figure. To begin with, let’s decide whether you are observing nature or a photograph? Now many artists are working on photos, we’ll talk about this separately separately. This time I will tell you how to make a portrait without photographs and other references, except for real life and your memories. This is a portrait of Sergei, my work colleague. There was a time when I saw him every day, and somehow surprisingly accurately remembered some of his remarkable features. When I decided to make a portrait, the first thing that came to my mind was the image – a man in a sheepskin coat and cap, a little scruffy, kind and smart look with a sly squint. I chose the right technique without hesitation, of course, it will be an impressionistic pointillism with a spotted coating of postmodernism. Now I can describe the style so precisely, and when I started to make the picture, the brush itself gave out strokes and interlaced. If you want to make an honest portrait, you must personally know the person. I am convinced that it is impossible to create something true if you have never met and talked, if you have not formed a connection. For almost five years, every working day I met with my colleague, he became my friend at work, who was unusually good-natured and talkative, eccentric and very enterprising. He told me a lot of things that I had never known before, especially in matters of my profession and human relations in the team and beyond. I think that it’s worth taking a portrait of a person when you can close your eyes and easily imagine your conversation with him in 3D, examine it from all sides, pause for the most typical gestures. For me, a portrait of a man is how I remember him. This is his voice, and laughter, and a sense of humor, and resentment, and smells, and actions. All this is reflected in the picture with color, strokes, shadows, images. I am also convinced that you should not make a portrait of a person who is not pleasant to you, because if you took on a portrait of a person, find something truly human in him, what delights you in him is of interest, curiosity, sympathy, love . The artist takes even the most malicious villain into his arms, creating his portrait, he shows the brightest side of his soul. Oil painting on canvas measuring 45×35 cm.