I teach a portrait class Tuesday evenings so when I’m not helping students, I’m helping myself by working on this head study. This was a great opportunity to experiment with Yarka Russian Sauce. What fun! I love the darks I’m getting. This all started with my interest in Valentin...
Feb272014
Portrait Study – Russian Sauce
Feb192014
Inspiration – Experiences Outside the Studio
Monday night I tried something new. I went to a Visual Journal Collective meetup at MCBA (Minnesota Center for Book Arts). FYI, the next meetup is March 17. I went hoping to glean some insight on visual journaling. I got a LOT more. I was inspired. Mary Jo Hoffman...
Jan292014
Posthumous Portrait
As a present for my husband, I painted a posthumous portrait of his mother. Kinda tricky. I had to work from photos, and my memories and impressions of her. Step 1 Transfer the photo reference as a line drawing/tracing to the canvas and start painting. I thought this would...
Jan292014
Experiment: Camera Lucida
So a couple guys did a Kickstarter. They created a modern version of the camera lucida: the NeoLucida. I was curious so I chipped in. Backstory David Hockney, in his book “Secret Knowledge,” proposed that many of the old masters used optics as they came available. This ruffled some...
Dec312013
Portrait Practice
I’ve been studying Valentin Serov’s portraits. He was a Russian artist in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. I love his dancing, searching line mixed in with bold marks and wanted to experiment with that. A few Saturdays ago I had some extra time and got to attend the...