WHAT'S INSIDE

Fifteen pages with practical exercises. 
Immediately useful.

Clear concepts, visual examples, and practical ways of thinking you can apply before you start your next portrait — whatever your level.

If you have ever spent hours adjusting the eyes, moving the mouth or repainting the nose, and the portrait still does not look like the person, the problem is usually not the features. It is the head underneath.

This free guide shows you what I look at before I paint the face.

Inside

• the few skull landmarks that matter for a painter
• how to use simple axes to find the direction of the head and place the features
• how to use planes to read the light
• two exercises to do with a portrait that did not work

ABOUT ME

A contemporary painter, obsessed with portraiture.

I'm Rosso Emerald Crimson — a professional artist and founder of Rosso Art School, working from my studio in Oxford.

In seventeen of full-time painting practice, I have painted hundreds of portraits. I began teaching in 2018, and everything I teach comes from my own practice — what I have tested, got wrong, and finally understood.

Over 1,500 artists from more than 40 countries have studied with me.

This guide shows the principles I use every time I start a portrait.

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