Portrait Revolution, Julia Kay – Book Review

So here’s the first book review from my Christmas stash. Being in a post-Christmas slump, I started with a book that was all about inspiration rather than lessons and that I was unlikely to want to take notes on. This is a 224 page paperback and a little smaller than I expected, being about 8 inches by 9.

Before I get to the book, a bit of background. Julia Kay set up a portrait party in the internet. Artists would send in photos of themselves and then paint portraits of other artists in the group and post them. It feels like double winning to me: a huge supply of willing portrait models and the occasional portrait of the participant by another artist.

And the book is a celebration of this initiative, effectively a big collection of portraits from the party. There are about 20 pages at the end that are made up of short tips on painting portraits, broken up by portraits playing a supporting role, but for the rest of the book the portraits are the stars. The portraits are divided into loads of 2-4 page long mini chapters where all the portraits have something in common. There are portraits grouped by medium, by subject, by artist, by style (abstract, monochrome,…) and by theme (with animals, wearing hats, etc). Some of the portraits have short quotes next to them by the artist about their methods.

And, as you can probably guess, it’s a great book to look through for inspiration. Personally, I was inspired most by the paintings that were grouped by style, with some interesting ideas worth trying out. But, perhaps more importantly, the diversity of styles throughout the book and, in particular, the variety of takes on the same person in the parts grouped by subject, were a real eye opener. It’s telling me that there’s no such thing as a “correct” portrait. There are hundreds of different ways to convert one photo to a great portrait. We all see things differently, we all have different styles. I feel like I’ve arrived as an artist after reading this book. Rather than looking around the room, seeing loads of identical artists and feeling like I’m the odd one out, I’m looking around and seeing that all artists are different. I didn’t learn much about painting but it seems I did have an epiphany of sorts.

If you already have enough books on drawing and painting portraits and just want something to look at and draw inspiration from, this is a great book. I guess it’s the portrait equivalent of The Art Of Urban Sketching. I’m glad to have this book in my collection and it easily scores three palettes. But, like all books that are all about inspiration and not about teaching lessons, I can’t go any higher than three, no matter how unfair that sounds.

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You can find this book and more reviews of it at Amazon UK here. As an Amazon Associate, I earn commission from qualifying purchases but this costs absolutely nothing extra to you.