“Suspicion” oil study, 8×8 inches

I’ve been doing this series of portrait studies, exploring the expressions or emotions on people’s faces. I call them the “Novela” series, because I’m inspired by those fabulous Spanish-language soap operas and all their drama and campiness!

For some reason it was a challenge to do this painting. The expression was hard to capture, and his mouth especially was difficult. But that was what attracted me to this subject in the first place! I probably worked longer (and fussed more) on this portrait than I’d like, because I got the proportions a little off on the face and needed to work harder to fix that.

Here’s a close-up detail of the painting: