While the ability to paint a realistic portrait is admirable, painting portraits that are limited only by our imagination is much more fun. It enables you to fully flex your creativity and use a fair bit of artistic licence.

While I don't personally go crazy with my artistic licence, I do like to take advantage of it. I do this by combining humour, creepiness, and a bit of design in an attempt to keep my portraits a few steps away from reality. I find it intriguing when a portrait enables people to decide for themselves what's going on in the image, rather than telling them explicitly what they should think about it. I always try to keep that in mind while working on a portrait, or any piece for that matter.

For this workshop, you will only need a pencil, some paper, a Wacom tablet, and Photoshop with its default Round brush. A basic understanding of the anatomy and proportions of the human head, as well as some knowledge of light, and colour, will also help you greatly. I’ve included working PSD files on your free DVD to help you understand my creative process further.