Tegan

This young lady modeled for our portrait group last week. She was so professional and we appreciated her steady gaze, excellent posture and ability to return to the pose--and her beautiful costume, of course!

Angel in Red

Angel is a woman from Taiwan who posed in her wedding dress for our portrait group. She was everything you could want in a model: beautiful, poised and immobile. I created a 12" x 16" study from life, then using the study, I painted a monochromatic underpainting from the study and filled it in using color when I went to the life session the following week. There were other corrections that needed to be made, but the basis for the painting is a complimentary color scheme of red and green.

18x24

Angel in Red

Recycling Old Canvas or Board

I paint so many pieces that there are bound to be failures. I know- everyone else has perfect paintings.

So once in awhile I will paint a landscapes over a bad portrait and a portrait over a bad landscape. It recycles the boards so it saves some money and it also encourages experimentation. Why? I think it's because the painting underneath provides the unconscious with a direction to go-- or at least a direction to cover up. lol

Anyway--- this is a start of one: the landscape was a 20" x 24" plein air piece that was a disaster in my opinion. The model is from Cameroon, and she modeled for our portrait group this month. Unfortunately I could not be there every session so this is as far as I have gone. I have some photos so I may try to finish her up. She is the most beautiful and inspirational model we have had in a long time.

You can still see a little bit of the building that was a focal point in the old painting. The texture and the rough spots in the old painting encouraged me to go a little farther with the background and really lay the paint on- so that was fun.

Monica from our portrait group

Wow- this girl is only 14 years old. She looked a lot older to me and she was very good at holding her pose. Last week we were fortunate enough to have TWO models show up. Even though it was unexpected, it was great, because we weren't all crowded together. She did a great job.

Painted at the Hyter Portrait Group, corner of Hill and Holland-Sylvania in Toledo, Ohio

Email me if you are interested in learning more about this group and drawing and painting from the live model.

14" X 11" OIL ON LINEN