Portrait Paintings vs. Portrait Photography

As I was making a sketch of Marie Antoinette for my digital painting, I couldn’t help but feel frustrated about the lack of references I have of her. The only references I could find are paintings of her. Paintings are not like photos. Photos tell you exactly what the person, or subject, looks like. That’s what portrait paintings lack because artists have their own impression of the subject that they’re painting, and it’s only natural that it’s what they will apply on their canvas. That’s the reason why, even though I’m grateful to the painters for giving me a hint of how Marie Antoinette looked like, I find the fact that I don’t have any reliable reference of her exasperating. Nevertheless, I did the best I could with the references that I already have.


Here's my first attempt at making a portrait of Marie Antoinette:

Here's my second attempt:

Art in Packaging: Enticing the Eyes and the Mind

Photo by Carmel Vilchez

I’m just thinking… a product’s packaging really does wonders. I remember when my Mom went to Singapore and bought some chocolates for us. She bought many, believe me. When we saw the packaging of each brand, in their interesting wrappers, my younger sister and I decided to take pictures of them at the rooftop, of our building, where the lighting is best (I am a food photography enthusiast, so I try to keep my camera handy when I see delicious and interesting foods). One of the products was wrapped like gold bars and the other product was shaped like merlions while yet another product had rounded chocolates wrapped in gold-colored paper. We decided to mix them all together and arrange them in interesting ways, so that when a person sees our photos they will say, to themselves, “Ah, I want to have some of those!” After our photo shoot we went back downstairs to finally taste each product. To our huge disappointment, the chocolates didn’t even taste like chocolate! They all tasted like sugar in some kind of bland mixture, except for the rounded chocolates. At least they had an outer wafer, covering the chocolate inside that’s mixed with more tiny bits of wafers. We gave most of them away to our friends. We just wanted to get rid of them because we didn’t like the taste or the texture. What’s the lesson in the story? Don’t buy foods based upon their expensive packaging. Looks can be deceiving and as they say, “You can’t tell a book by looking at its cover”. It’s no wonder that so many food producers invest so much money in their design and presentation. The packaging look luxurious while the chocolate itself tasted bland but I must say kudos to the artist behind them.