What Makes a Face Paintable? A Portrait Artist's Reflection

Not all faces ask to be painted. That’s something I’ve realised slowly, over time, like a quiet truth you only hear when you stop looking so hard.

It’s easy to assume portraiture is about visual interest—strong bone structure, unusual features, dramatic expressions. But that’s rarely what draws me in. A striking face doesn’t always leave a mark. A “pretty” one often disappears too quickly. What stays with me is harder to explain.

Sometimes, it’s the way someone holds themselves—open or guarded, but never posed. Or a moment when they forget they’re being watched, and something honest slips through. Other times, it’s a softness behind the eyes, or a quiet resilience in the jaw. A flicker of something unspoken. A presence that asks to be seen.

I think I paint people less because of how they look, and more because of what they hold.

Looking Beyond the Obvious

The best portraits, to me, aren’t trying to impress. They invite. They lean in rather than declare. When I decide to paint someone, it’s rarely because I think I’ll get a dramatic result. It’s because there’s something in them I want to understand—or maybe, something I already do.

A paintable face isn’t just a collection of features. It’s a conversation waiting to happen. It holds stories, contradictions, softness and strength—things that don’t show up on the surface until you spend time with them. That’s why I tend to work slowly. I’m not trying to extract an image. I’m trying to stay with the presence of someone long enough for the painting to say something they haven’t.

It’s a strange intimacy, painting someone. You see them in pieces at first—shapes, shadows, planes of light. But as the work builds, a kind of memory forms. Not photographic, but emotional. Like remembering how someone felt rather than how they looked.

People Over Faces

The longer I paint, the more I realise I’m not really drawn to faces—I’m drawn to people. Real ones. People who’ve lived things. People who aren’t performing. People whose vulnerability shows not in their expression, but in their stillness. People who, whether they know it or not, are carrying something universal.

There’s no formula for this. It’s intuitive. Some faces linger in your mind long after they’ve gone. Others drift past. And every so often, you meet someone—on a train, in a café, walking down a quiet street—and you think: you’d make a beautiful painting. Not because of your cheekbones. But because you’ve got that something. That pause. That presence.

Letting the Work Decide

I used to think I had to justify who I painted. That I needed a narrative, a reason, a story that made sense. But I’ve let that go. Now, I trust the pull. The quiet magnetism that says: start here. And often, once the painting begins, the reason reveals itself. Not in words, but in colour. In gesture. In the way the work slows me down and asks me to listen.

So, what makes a face paintable?

For me, it’s not symmetry, or light, or fame, or even expression. It’s presence. Humanness. A feeling that what’s in front of me might become something felt if I give it enough time.

And when that feeling comes, I follow it.

That’s where the real painting begins.

If you’d like to learn more about my creative process or see my latest work, feel free to reach out or check out the rest of my website.

.M.

Be real.

Make art.