Portrait Study #7

"Portrait Study #7", 14 x 11 In, Oil on Museum Board
I spent many days in early 2019 practicing portraits. This is one of them

View purchase information here.
Please contact me if you have questions.

Girl in Blue

"Girl in Blue", 14 x 11 In, Oil on Museum Board

The other day I was out where there were crowds of people, which is not particularly comfortable for me. I like to go to places like Escalante, where I head out in my 4-wheel drive with my artist friends and we never see another soul. But I can get along in most any situations if I can find a definite purpose, and in this case, it was surreptitiously taking photos of the many faces for portrait paintings. This painting is actually from a photo from long ago. And yes, I would rather have a live model, but in the end, its all about letting go and taking liberties--the more, the better.

Purchase this painting framed.
Purchase this painting unframed.
Contact me for questions about this painting.

Woman in Black

"Woman in Black", 14 x 11 In, Oil on Museum Board
Fascinated by portraiture, I continue to try to re-think my process. In the end, they are all experiments and the question always is, when to simply go on to the next one. I've always found that at a certain point, everything in the painting is dependent on everything else and to change one small thing is often a major undertaking, even if that one small thing stands out as something that needs to be "fixed."

Woman In Black

Framed $1,050.00 USD Unframed $950.00 USD

White Dress

"White Dress", 14 x 11 In, Oil on Museum Board

I recently read a blog from another artist who said that value is more important than color and something in me wants to take exception to that. But I also would not contend the opposite. Value and color are like the senses of seeing and hearing, both aspects of the bigger whole. With color there are warms and cools, not dependent on value. And it would be interesting to know if the brain registers color differently than value. And what about other aspects of painting, such as brushwork, which could be related to value (the "rule" says keep darks thin), but is really something different--a matter of physical intention and emotion. In fact, I've never been able to think of one aspect of painting as being more important than another aspect, but maybe I am missing something, and so I am open to your thoughts--readers of my blog!

Price

Framed $1,050.00 USD Unframed $950.00 USD

Meg

"Meg", 14 x 11 In, Oil on Museum Board

I am fascinated by the human face but continually question--how to make it a fascinating painting. Sometimes, as in this portrait, I use a bigger brush, #10 flat, to keep from being caught up in detail.

Framing

Framed $1,050.00 USD Unframed $950.00 USD

Portrait Study #29

Portrait Study #29, 14 x 11 In, Oil on Museum Board
Only one more portrait to post after this--then I'm out in the sun and the wind.

Portrait Study #27

"Portrait Study #27", 14 x 11 In, Oil on Museum Board
I promise I am almost to the end of my portrait studies--a few more postings and then I'm off to the landscape--my goodness--the sun is shining here--after weeks of rain. I probably won't understand what I've learned until I'm off in the distance.

Portrait Study #26

"Portrait Study #26", 14 x 11 In, Oil on Museum Board
With every study, there is an attempt to try something different, and it may not always be obvious. There are so many variables, and maybe, at some point, more abstraction will become the main variable. But until then, this one is about warms and cools.

Purchase this unframed painting.
Contact me if you would like to purchase a plein air frame.

Portrait Study #25

"Portrait Study #25", 14 x 11 In, Oil on Museum Board

Ah--yet another portrait. There was an amazing sight the other day out my back window that I wish I had moved quickly enough to capture in a photo. It was nearing dusk when we saw one of our Bald Eagles swimming across the Cove, probably with a catch in its talons too heavy to lift out of the water. Eagles do not float on the water, but they are powerful swimmers. It swam a good 300-400 feet in less than 10 minutes. We saw this once before years ago when we first moved here. Our Eagle pair was on the beach yesterday--brilliant white heads against the dark gray sand.

Portrait Study #24

"Portrait Study #24", 14 x 11 In, Oil on Museum Board
This is another portrait I did a couple of weeks ago. It was a complete second try on a painting that I didn't like. The first one had been "fixed" to death. Strange how lifeless a painting can become with second thoughts. Sometimes even glaring errors have more feeling. I try to go with the idea that what I put down is it--to say it in the beginning--to question the voice that says, "you can fix it later."

Portrait Study #23

"Portrait Study #23", 14 x 11 In, Oil on Museum Board
Long ago, someone asked one of my instructors at his workshop if he kept paintings he really liked (or something along those lines). He said he liked them for about half an hour--then he saw all the problems. It's sort of like buying in on a market high.

Portrait Study #22

"Portrait Study #22", 14 x 11 In, Oil on Museum Board

I generally spend not more that 1.5 to 2 hours on a portrait study. By the next morning, some of the paint is dry and I like working wet-in-wet, so at the end of the day, I have to call it finished. Sometimes in the morning it's wet enough to completely scrape and start over and I have done that more than once! Other times I try to "fix" whatever is bothering me about the painting. But that is often what takes the life out of it--a tiny fix can change the entire painting, for better or for worse.

Portrait Study #21

"Portrait Study #21", 14 x 11 In, Oil on Museum Board
The other day, rather than painting, I found myself cleaning up my studio, taking old tubes of paint to the recyling bin and putting frames and canvases in the closet, throwing out stuff and find a place for all those little things that have no home. I actually had this on my To Do list, but its one of those things that is easy to put off--until its impossible to paint with a clear mind unless its done. I still have a ways to go. One of the things I found as I was rearranging my bookcase, was an old songbook by Judy Collins, and because the sun is shining after weeks of rain, I've been singing in my mind all morning the Scottish song, The Wild Mountain Thyme--"For the summertime is coming..."

Portrait Study #20

"Portrait Study #20", 14 x 11 In, Oil on Museum Board
Doing a series of paintings is a good strategy, because it allows for experimentation along with the vagaries of the day. "Vagaries" is a good word for it, thought I only knew what it meant in a vague sort of way until I looked it up in the thesaurus: Vagary: an unexpected and inexplicable change in a situation or in someone's behavior. Now doesn't that speak to the truth of the painter's way?

Portrait Study #19

"Portrait Study #19", 14 x 11 In, Oil on Museum Board
I've been doing mostly portraits of models with dark hair. It was strange how light colored hair changed so much in the approach to the portrait.

Portrait Study #18

"Portrait Study #18", 14 x 11 In, Oil on Museum Board
This portrait was was a study in the use of a slightly different palette--more ochres and yellows than pinks and reds for flesh tones.

Portrait Study #16

"Portrait Study #16", 14 x 11 In, Oil on Museum Board
There are so many factors that go into a portrait and this one is maybe best described as being about expression. A tiny touch of paint on the corner of the mouth or the eyelid can change the entire expression of a portrait. It makes me think about everything we see in another's face and the instant understanding, often unconscious, of the meaning of these small nuances.

Portrait Study #16

"Portrait Study #16", 14 x 11 In, Oil on Museum Board
Sometimes I go through old photos for models to paint from. I don't usually try to create a likeness--its more a study of color, value and structure.

Portrait Study #11

"Portrait Study #11", 14 x 11 In, Oil on Museum Boar
I didn't get much painting done yesterday--my kitty got stuck between two upward branches of a fruit tree, and I mean really wedged in there. We though we would have to saw off half the tree to get her out, but in the end I was able to lift her, somewhat forcefully upward and it was obviously painful. She could barely walk and I took her to the vet fearful of a spinal injury. But maybe her leg was just numb because she's OK now. And no, Zinny, your cat door will remain closed for the rest of the week! Does anyone else have a cat who feels compelled to cover up food that's left in the dish with the laundry?

Portrait Study #10

"Portrait Study #10", 14 x 11 In, Oil on Museum Board

Some of you may wonder why I paint on museum board for my smaller works. Its a habit that I learned from the late William F. Reese, my first plein air instructor, many years ago. I love museum board--it is archival, lightweight, inexpensive and when prepared the way I prepare it, has a wonderful surface. I purchase Risings 4 ply, 32 x 40 inch museum board from Daniel Smith, 25 sheets at a time. I usually prepare 10 sheets at at time. With my mat board cutter, I can cut the sheet to any size that I want.

You can go to this link for complete instructions on how to prepare museum board for oil painting.