Portraits North 26th Annual Portrait Show

Francesca Anderson Fine Art Portraits North is holding its 26th Annual Portrait show, and my pastel portraits Allison and Cate will be on display. The show runs from April 30th through June 7th, with between 50 and 60 portraits on display as samples of the portraiture from artists across the Northeast. Francesca Anderson Fine Art Portraits North specializes in helping people select artists to paint executives and public figures, children and families, and pets.

Two New Oil Paintings

I just returned from scanning my two latest oil paintings, shown above. The first is called Timeless, and the model is a woman named Sylvia from Salem, MA who owns an antique and jewelry store. The second painting is the one I've been blogging about recently, my self portrait done from the mirror. Now that I have that one under my belt, I feel more comfortable about painting others from life.

SP from Mirror Almost Done...

Here's a snapshot of my in-progress self portrait from the mirror, just about complete. Tomorrow make final tweaks and get a better image to post to my blog and website. This was a huge challenge for me, and I learned a lot (including that I have a lot to learn). I struggled at first in part because I had the canvas illuminated from sunlight filtering in through two windows, but my face was completely in the dark, and too difficult to see in the mirror. I remedied this later on with a small artificial daylight lamp. In addition, I believe that I was focusing too much on details too early on, at a time when the proportions were not yet established. Luckily, oil paint is great for making changes!

SP Work in Progress Continued

Here you can see my progress on the self portrait I'm painting from the mirror. This is much closer to what I want, though there are some real rough spots still. I think that perhaps one more day should do it.

Alternating Medium

I recently completed and delivered a colored pencil portrait, and I am working on another now. Much of what I learned from working in colored pencil has proven very useful in learning pastel and oil, and now I am finding that the opposite is also true. Working in pastel has been eye-opening in terms of creating subtle gradation of color, something that I am now paying more attention to in my colored pencil work. Oil allows me to work in a way most intuitive to me; starting with large shapes and blocks of color, and working in details, contrast, and highlights as I go along. This is also something that I would like to try to incorporate more into my colored pencil work as well.

SP from Mirror

An update on my self portrait done from the mirror... I think this at least looks like me. I'm working on a commission too, but this was bothering me so I decided to attack it one last time.

Last Post

I had to delete my last post because I really was not happy with the proportions of my self portrait from the mirror. The challenge of keeping my head at the same angle each time I glanced in the mirror was really getting the best of me. This does not mean that I'm giving up, though - I'll get back to work on it as soon as I finish the other tasks I'm working on!

Painting Just About Complete

My painting is just about complete, and I'm posting my own snapshot of the finished piece. Please excuse the glare on the right hand side... I need to get this professionally scanned (probably next week).

Oil Painting Preview

Above is a preview of my current work-in-progress. I've actually changed the face a bit since I took the photo, but this shows the point when I had laid down most of the color.