Freya Hoayun

I paint realistic portraits of people and animals in oil. I enjoy capturing a true likeness of my subjects, not just their physical features but also something of their character.  I am especially interested in how light can bring a painting to life.

Working from life and/or photographs my portraits are built up in layers over many days. I sometimes use a monochrome underpainting to ensure the correct values before adding several glazes of colour.  Other times I paint directly into colour varying between an alla prima approach and allowing the paint to dry between layers.  I tend to use a limited pallet of brown, blue, red, yellow and white as these colours allow me to mix almost any natural colour.

I have recently been experimenting with reflection and layering images  where strong light plays an integral roll in allowing two images to be seen together as one.