Gallery of Artwork
The following sizes and compositions (see table below) are a guide to the standard dimensions for traditional portrait paintings. The size of the subject’s head will be close to actual life size in these paintings, producing a portrait that will have good presence in a room and good detail when viewed close-up. The larger the painting, the larger the room it must be hung in.
A portrait can be painted in any style to suit your taste, such as impressionist, traditional “old master”, or modern photo-journalistic. Traditional portraits are more formal and posed, producing an official record of a person. Contemporary portraits place people in everyday clothes in everyday situations.
Information about commissioning an original portrait
Some good link to life drawing classes and information for models.