These speed paintings by Igor Kazarin are very intriguing. The artist's eye for detail amazes me. I have always wanted to paint and draw portraits with ease and I believe this is why my attention is draw to this artist so much. Kazarin uses light extremely well. The shadows that are cast and the highlights of the faces work so great together to create truly realistic pieces. I have used these paintings and videos as inspiration for my own work, to get me started on drawing faces and working at my skills. These videos give me an idea of where to start, which sometimes proves to be a challenge. His dry brushing technique is something I want to look into to learn to paint better with oils and create work like this someday. By starting out with a quick sketch, building up the colors and then blending them, Kazarin's work ends up looking almost exactly the way his reference photo looks, which is the way I tend to paint and draw. These are some of my favorite portraits in contemporary realism.
http://sharelikethis.blogspot.com/2011/02/artist-of-day-igor-kazarin.html
