Art by Laura Bird

Portraiture has grown and expanded since its original purpose by capturing a person's likeness, often of royals or individuals of high standing. These artworks have expanded in their use as fun expressions of a person's personality to capturing a moment or a memory in time. Now portraits are not always large, elaborate paintings, but can be expressive, capture an important memory, or even be a fun way to put ourselves in a story. Here are 5 ways portraits are used in today's

Producing a creative work is often a very involved process. Even in the idea generation stage, there can often be a lot of research and alteration as the work is being developed. When starting, I will often look at multiple photos for facial positions and experiment with many different color schemes to come up with ideas for what I might want to draw. I may start with a preset theme, but this is not always the case, and even with a general idea, it still requires consideratio