Nan, 20" x 24"
 

I feel a little bit embarrassed, posting two in a row, but I'm going to go ahead and do it! Just got these slides back and they turned out pretty well with a little photoshopping.

Let me explain about this portrait. It's really similar to a life study, except that I did it from several photographic references. My intent was to try to impart more of a feeling of movement in my portraits. So I set myself a time limit, in this case 3 hours. Actually it took me 3 1/2 from start to finish. I realized that, previous to this, I had gotten into a habit of pushing paint around too much and losing my spontenaeity, so I was very careful about sketching out the proportions of the head and face before picking up a paint brush. Voila! I got the likeness So quickly it amazed me! Plus I was able to keep my brushstrokes fresh. Once I got the head, I progressed to the rest of the painting. So in many ways it was an exercise as much as a likeness.

Alexandra,

I would like to see one every day - as long as you keep up that high quality. :thumbsup:

Is it family? It is such a relaxed and straight forward composition and wonderfully simple color scale.

Allan

Alexandra, your work takes my breath away. I love your soft colors, the relaxed pose of the woman, the 3D effect that lovely vase of flowers helps to give. Post any time!

Alexandra - luscious.

I so completely agree that careful thought up front makes things happen well- and faster.

Please don't hesitate to post.

Alexandra, this has wonderful edge variation and a lovely fluid brush quality - do you use a medium?

I also like the subdued color sense that shows up in the work you're posting on this Forum.

A gorgeous work Alexandra,

It reminds me of Morgan Weistlings' works. Great painting!

Allan, Julie, Chris and Linda,

Yikes, I am bowled over! Since I joined the forum I have seen some incredible work, and believe me you guys are doing it! So your opinions mean a great deal.

Allan, to answer your question about the woman in the portrait, she is not family, but a very dear friend whom we see in Maine in the summers. Her husband, who died several years ago, was an artist and teacher who believed in painting only from life, and Nan is fiercely loyal to that way of thinking. When I do drawings of the house and environs she loves them and puts them up on the wall. I've been wanting to paint her from life but she won't sit still long enough! (She has no electricity or running water, so she chops wood, fetches water from the lake, etc.) She says "maybe sometime you can paint me knitting," but I haven't caught her knitting lately. Except on a series of photos I took a couple of years ago. I finally decided to use them to create this challenge for myself, since in commisssioned work I often have no choice but to work from photos. I may bring this up to Maine and see what she thinks of it, though I'm not optimistic!

Linda, no I do not use a medium. It's just turpenoid (I'm allergic to regular solvents) and paint. I stopped using medium a while back because it made my edges too hard. Now I use more paint and I have a lot more control over the edges. I just clean my brushes off between colors, pat them on a paper towel, and there is usually enough turpenoid left in them to soften the paint. I forget why I started doing this. I guess I heard someone explaining why they no longer used medium and I thought "Hey, maybe that's my problem!"

Whoops, did not mean to exclude you, Claudemir! You must have posted while I was typing. Thanks so much! I'm not familiar with Morgan Weistling's work, so I'm going to go right now and see what I can find on the web.

Such a nice painting -- very fresh!

Watch out for that turpenoid stuff, though. You might want to read around and see what kind of archival effect it has on the paint.

Michele, thanks!

Hmmm, about the Turpenoid, I've been using it since regular solvent gave me respiratory problems. I knew that it wasn't necessarily great to be breathing just because it was odorless, but I didn't realize it was so unhealthy! And I was avoiding using the Turpenoid Natural because I heard it wasn't very good. I know there are some threads dealing with solvents so I will read them. Several of my friends swear by Gamsol. What do you use? Thanks for bringing it up. I'm always on the lookout for a better, less toxic solvent.