Artists write about painting portraits….

The distance from the chin to the nostrils makes up a third of the face. It is the same from the nostrils to the eyebrows, and again from the eyebrows to the hairline. From one ear to the other, the distance is the same as from the eyebrows to the chin. The width of the mouth is the same as that from the middle of the lips to the chin.
Leonardo da Vinci










To displace. Put the eyes where the legs are, the genitals where the face is. To contradict. To do an eye face on and one sideways. Nature does many things like me, but she hides them.
Pablo Picasso











The way the nose is rooted in the face, the way the ear is screwed into the skull, the way the lower jaw is hung, the intensity of the gaze…
Henri Matisse










By the way, I am not a prince, but someone who makes his living from his handicraft.
Peter Paul Rubens











I have finished the portrait of me that you wanted… You will not be disappointed; I have kept my promise, since I have chosen the best and most lifelike for you: you will see the difference for yourself.
Nicolas Poussin












In a head, the first thing for an artist to do is to make the eyes speak…then you move on to how the nose sticks out. The sloping nostril is a good means of expression: it indicates a peaceful character.
Dominique Ingres












I am getting really old, I am covered in wrinkles, and you would not even recognize me apart from my puggish nose and my sunken eyes… What is certain is that I look my age: forty-one…
Francisco Goya












The flesh only has its true colour in the open air, especially in the sunlight. The local complexion must be transparent; though if halftoned it gives the illusion, in principle, of the blood under the skin.
Eugène Delacroix












I have bought for the purpose a fairly good mirror in order to work using myself as a model, as I do not have a real model, because if I manage to paint the colouring of my own head, which is a bit of a challenge, I could then just as easily paint the faces of other good men and women.
Vincent van Gogh