Seven-time Archibald Prize finalist Kim Leutwyler explains how to paint a portrait

Archibald Prize season is upon us. "A great sitter is someone who is willing to give you a good chunk of their time so that you can sit together throughout the portrait process, but also someone who's really collaborative because the process of painting a portrait is a two-way street," says Leutwyler. "I'm the one who's got the brush on the canvas but I'm asking for a lot of input from my sitter, and asking them about the colours that really resonate with them most." "I will then start to compare that to the photo references that I initially took and the sketches from our initial sitting, and make tiny little tweaks that tighten the jawline or bring the eye up … and just creating those adjustments to get it closer to real life, but without trying to attempt photorealism “As I get to know people a little bit better, and they have input into their portrait, inevitably it becomes something else," says Leutwyler. "I think it's incredibly important to bring my sitter back in for a final sitting whenever possible, because you're able to see things that a photograph can't capture or that you can't remember from the initial sketch," says Leutwyler.