After a great day painting portraits, I had enough energy for one more. This is a portrait painted via Skype, of my dearest friend in the world. While he chatted with me, I painted this portrait on a tiny piece of watercolor paper. I am definitely back in the groove, and need more faces to paint. For those of you that are concerned; he doesn’t have a tattoo of my name on his hand.
For the first time since I was home, I had the opportunity to paint! The Portrait Society set this up with TWO models, how exciting and fun! There were pastel artists, oil painters, lots of people with charcoal too. I was the only watercolor painter. I want to do this again, soon.
Today was my last portrait session in Tallahassee, as next Monday my cats and I will be flying back to Seattle. We watched expectantly as different possible portrait models walked through our room, after Tom told us our model wasn’t coming. And then Florence walked in. She was diminutive and soft spoken. She couldn’t see very well, and it was okay with her that we asked her to remove her glasses. She’d never sat as a model before, but was clearly an over achiever, no model we’d ever had held the pose as long as she did. We had to insist she take breaks. Her face was like a rhapsody. Sometimes she smiled, she looked like she was in a rapture, other times, the lines changed, her lips thinned, and she looked sad. I wish I could get her to talk. I knew she had stories to tell.
George was kind enough to sit for us today. He really challenged the artists, as he wore an iridescent shirt and vest. He sat very still, in fact, he seemed to like the challenge of sitting through some of his breaks as well. I was very pleased with his face and his aspect, and as a result, here is his portrait. I do portraits by commission as well. All proceeds go to endangered species conservation.
Today our model was George. I was assured that he was a “good” model. Relieved to not have a “bad model, I settled right in, and as he appeared, chewing tobacco and wearing a cap, I wondered what a “bad” model was. He was convinced to lose his chaw and I politely requested that he remove his cap. To my delight, he not only had great hair, but miles of eyebrows too. Unfortunately, he had a serious case of the wiggles. And the nods. Fortunately after the first hour, he found some coffee. A lot of us had trouble painting him today because he kept moving. He was quite the challenge, but his features made it worth while.
Everyone in the studio groaned when we heard that the center would be closed next Monday for President’s day.