8887 Pablo the Clown
Jerry Yarnell – Inspiration of Painting Fine Art Instructional PBS Television Video Series

In this beginner acrylic painting lesson, Jerry guides you step-by-step through creating Pablo the Clown, a colorful character portrait on an 18 x 24 canvas during a 104 minute lesson. Pablo's expressive face features classic clown makeup, a bright red nose, dark hat decorated with yellow flowers, colorful clothing, and a flower held beside his face. This unusual and entertaining subject gives beginning artists an opportunity to explore portrait painting while developing facial features, expression, color, and character.

You'll learn how to paint a clown portrait while developing believable facial proportions, expressive eyes, nose, mouth, facial contours, and distinctive makeup. Jerry demonstrates fine art techniques for building the face through shape, value, highlights, shadows, and color while gradually adding the hat, flowers, clothing, and other details that give Pablo his unique personality. This step-by-step acrylic painting tutorial provides valuable practice in painting faces and creating expression without making the project overly complicated for the beginning artist.

Special focus is given to painting portraits, faces, eyes, noses, mouths, clown makeup, skin tones, facial expressions, flowers, clothing, highlights, and shadows using layered acrylic techniques, controlled brushwork, and blended color transitions. You'll also explore techniques for creating facial dimension, placing features accurately, developing convincing light and shadow, and using color and detail to give a portrait personality and character.

By the end of this lesson, you'll gain confidence in painting faces, facial features, expressions, and colorful portrait subjects while learning how fine art principles can be applied to an imaginative character painting. This beginner acrylic painting tutorial is an excellent project for artists wanting to strengthen their portrait painting skills while creating a memorable clown filled with color, expression, and personality.