Portrait

Palette

Ila

A little more than a week ago I met a woman and her daughter. It was during an outdoor event for Portland Open Studios. Artists on the tour were demonstrating at Portland’s Director Park. She liked my paintings, we talked, she asked if I painted portraits. This led to my first, official, commissioned portrait. I’ve painted dozens of portraits over the years of friends, family, and myself. She visited my studio with her daughter and her daughter sat for me for about 30 minutes. I continued working on the painting in the studio using her image on my computer monitor for reference. It was my first time painting a portrait that wasn’t completely from life. I will say that painting from life in the beginning definitely helped me to see the vibrancy of the colors in her hair and skin. Later, working with the computer image (photo) I was happily surprised to find I was able to stay pretty loose and didn’t use the monitor at all toward the end. Really, it is quite different from the photo – yet captures a really nice sense of her daughter (I think).

I included a photo of my palette. It looks like this a lot before I clean up. When she was in the studio, I used a hand-held palette.

Advertisement