Acrylic Art & Painting from Photos > Discover the inspiring journey of Chantel Lynn Barber, who brings emotion and storytelling to life. With a unique blend of impressionism and realism, Barber transforms photographic references into expressive, layered portraits. Learn more about her techniques and insights as she prepares to share her expertise at Acrylic Live 2025.
Acrylic Portraits: A Magical Shade of Realism
“I was very introverted as a child, and even then, drawing, especially faces and people’s stories, was something that always made me feel good,” said artist Chantel Lynn Barber, who will be among the faculty members of the first, historic edition of Acrylic Live, March 26-28, 2025, online.
A mother and devoted wife, Chantel was born in New Jersey and raised in San Diego, CA, in a “non-artistic family,” as she herself defined it. “I didn’t have the opportunity to socialize and experience adolescence like other children,” says Chantel. “Drawing filled my hours. Pastels were my first medium and even then I was drawing people.”
Chantel discovered the wonderful world of art thanks to Grace Barnes, an elderly artist who lived across the street from her when she moved to Southern California with her parents at the age of 10. “Grace introduced me to many museums and beautiful art books that I didn’t know existed until then,” Chantel said. “It opened up a whole new world of possibilities in terms of what I could do with art.”
She attended her classes for two years, during which Grace introduced her to oil painting, but Chantel switched from oil to acrylic paint over 35 years ago, mainly for practical reasons. “My husband was military and the movers would not pack oil paint,” said the artist. It is no coincidence that Chantel considers herself “an acrylic artist in a world of oil painting,” as she writes in her biography.
Chantel is a member of numerous organizations and art societies, including the prestigious Portrait Society of America, and has won numerous competitions. Recently, she was a finalist in the 17th International ARC Salon Competition – Figurative; Best Figure & Portrait, and in September 2022, she won Best Figure & Portrait in the 12th Annual Plein Air Salon Competition.
After getting married at the age of 19, Chantel took a breath of fresh air. She sat down and had a talk with herself and said, “Art is my voice,” and she explored all the options for her artistic career.
Although she started her artistic business in 2006, she waited until her children were out of the nest before committing to being a full-time artist. However, Chantel has fond memories of the years she spent caring for her children. “Those years forced me to have a set painting schedule. It gave me a routine and made me disciplined. Discipline and routine are the keys to getting results,” says the artist, who recently moved from Tennessee to Texas to be closer to one of her children.
Her husband’s work has led her to admire all types of landscapes in the United States, from the coast to the mountains, from lakes to hills, but even the beauty of nature has not been able to divert her from portraying the subject that moves her most: people. “I’m sensitive to people’s feelings around me and to their stories,” she said.
Among her favorite subjects are children and teenagers, whose expressive intensity captures the observer’s gaze and allows him to enter the magical world of Chantel Lynn Barber. A world made up of childlike gazes or little guests defined by their “suggested” physiognomic peculiarities or engaged in playful-educational activities that reveal all their innocence and the spontaneity of their postures and gestures.
She believes children are also among the most difficult subjects to portray because of the sensitivity needed to capture their essence, which is very different from those of adults.
With a well-defined and distinct style reminiscent of the Impressionist canon, Chantel’s art is more precisely described as “a magical shade of realism in the world of Impressionism.” Her brushstrokes, deliberately soft and gentle, derive from the artist’s approach to life. This inevitably influences both the choice of palette, rich in soft, warm colors – but which can be enriched with “visiting colors” when necessary – and the choice of the dreamy subjects she portrays. In her paintings, the artist always manages to maintain a balance between sufficient realism expressed in the details and some abstract impressionistic parts of the painting.
From a compositional point of view, Chantel admits that painting with pastels has influenced her current way of working, because even with acrylics she works in layers, using marking techniques that have translated into her current style.
On Painting From Photos
She works mainly from her own photographic references of her models. These photographs are a starting point, a memory, says the artist, who works only on the basis of the composition, the color and the mood she wants to convey, and which she manages to achieve thanks to the solid artistic foundations she has built up along the way. Sometimes she also likes to take a previous work and reinvent it, reproposing it in a different format.
With over 35 years of working in the acrylic medium, Chantel Lynn Barber’s gentle teaching approach at Acrylic Live will enrich the painting skills of both beginners and advanced artists with a special demonstration.
“I wasn’t able to dream enough and I wasn’t able to imagine enough,” she says, “so my art now is a way to dream and to imagine and invite other people to share it.”
This article is sponsored by the PaintTube Video Workshop, “Chantel Barber: Painting from Photos“ (preview it below!)
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Find more articles on painting from photos at RealismToday.com.
