6th of 7 Portraits

Has it really been this long since my last post?

This is the sixth of seven portraits for 'The Portrait Project.' Our committment to each other was that each of the seven of us would paint a self-portrait and portraits of at least two others in the group. We agreed to reassess the project at the one-year mark which is coming up in the next month. By completing the portrait of Myung-ja, above, I've done six. That leaves just Kurt Tatum whose image I have started and moved along, not quite to the half-way point.

More pine cones and sea shells

Each 8 x 10 inches. Smaller than I really care to work but some shows in the NYC area during the holidays require "small" to be no larger than an 8 x 10 image.

Helene Balzarini

Another artist in the Portrait Project: Helene Pinnisi Balzarini. If artists could choose their names I would gravitate towards names like Pinnisi or Balzarini. These names just sound inherently artistic, right?

This is not finished but fairly far along. She put her left hand on the wall as I took a reference photo. I asked her to move it up slightly to better fit the composition. She left her painting apron on, which I like for the color element. Helene wears glasses but took them off. This was a good move. The glasses have a very distinctive look and I suspect in a few years a picture of her in those glasses would look dated.

Work in Progress - Kevin

This just goes to show you how ghastly things can get in the underpainting stage. Night before last his face was green. It all gets better in the final stages. Honest!

Progress in the Portrait Project

Top to bottom: Michael Elsasser, Claudia Monaco and moi. Sea earlier posts for preliminary drawings. Obviously I like horizontal compositions for these portraits and I also like side or back-lit light sources. The shadow areas are built up in multiple glazes of alternating complimentary colors Terra verte mixed with a tiny piece of viridian in one glaze and vermilion mixed with a little alizarin crimson in the next glaze.

Meself

At the drawing and under-painting stage.

Another contribution to the portrait project I have mentioned in earlier posts. Tough to look at oneself and acknowledge that I don't look as I did when I was twenty-five. You would think the mirror would do a pretty good job of accomplishing that but we do have a way of deceiving ourselves and, for an artist that doesn't go away until we drag a brush over every square inch of the face.

At that point the tendency may be to go too far in the other direction. Earlier self-portraits have prompted others to tell me that I'm not that gray, etc. Maybe this time I'll nail it.

Mistakes in a drawing

As I look at this now I realize that the perspective for the wainscoting is at the wrong angle when compared to the angle of the line where the floor meets the wall. I also realized that the leg of her chair nearest the viewer was in the wrong place so I re-drew it with my eraser, placing it a little closer to the other leg and in line with the back of the chair.

But I'm fairly happy with my rendering of the figure herself. She's a new model and I don't know her name. She seemed Eastern European or Russian.