Gloria Steinem

 oil on linen mounted on board 9" x 7"

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Cassidy Hutchinson

oil on hardboard 8" x 5.75"

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John Robert Lewis

 

oil on linen mounted on board 8" x 6"

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I Can't Breathe

oil on board 7" x 8"
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Here is you-know-who headed to Lafayette Square right after it had been cleared of protesters, briefly seen in front of a wall of graffiti.

Jack at Five Months

oil on linen mounted on board 8"x6"

My grandson Jack! 

Abby

oil on panel 8" x 6"
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This is my niece Abby, who will join the Milwaukee Ballet in the fall.  

Jack at Three Weeks

oil on board 8"x6"

My first grandson, Jack, was born in December. It was lovely to work on a portrait of him, but not easy!

Robert Mueller (second portrait)

oil on board 8" x 6"
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I still have my mind on this guy. My first portrait of him was a profile view, and I wanted to try painting his full face. I like his expression here, which I interpret as a mixture of caution and intelligence. 

When I paint a portrait, getting a likeness that satisfies me usually doesn't happen until the final day. There is lots of fussing over the mouth and eyes, but overall I may spend more time on the non-features, like the folds of skin under the eyes, and the shape of the forehead, cheeks and chin. That's where the real likeness is found. 

My recipe for painting a portrait from an image:

1. Paint simultaneously from a color image and a black-and-white version to get both the colors and values right.

2. Paint the entire thing upside down, but frequently turn it right-side up to check results.

3. Paint the details, then when you get tired of them and the painting seems to be going nowhere, move your easel back 12 feet from the images and paint from that distance. It's help pull the portrait together, and the main large shapes will be more apparent. 

Robert Mueller

oil on board 6" x 8"
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There's a bit of a backstory to this portrait. In 2012 I painted a portrait of President Barack Obama. In 2016, shortly after Donald Trump won the election, someone challenged me to paint Trump, not hatefully or sarcastically, but "showing his humanity". 

I have spent hours pouring over available images of Trump, trying to choose one that I'd find revealing of his innermost self, without seeming to be an easy "hit piece". I started two paintings of him and abandoned them both. I may try again. 

But in the meantime, I kept thinking of Attorney Robert Mueller, and how much I was dying to paint him- and so it goes. The heart wants what it wants (an Emily Dickinson quote).

After Anders Zorn's "Emma Zorn Reading"

oil on paper mounted on board 10"x15"
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I'm still in the midst of teaching a six week class using the "Zorn Palette", and thought I could learn by copying one his paintings. As in the original, I used just titanium white, ivory black, yellow ocher and cadmium red. 

Anders Zorn's portrait of his wife is 15.8 × 23.9 in, while my copy is much smaller. Zorn's style is often thought of as full of bravura, but I found the soft, internal expression of the woman subtly and lovingly painted.

Margot on Christmas

oil on board 7" x 9"
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This is my grandniece Margo, with the photo credit going to my nephew Jordan Meeder.

I'm gearing up to teach my limited palette class, and wanted to try the Zorn palette on a portrait. Just using white, black, yellow ocher and cadmium red makes painting seem closer to drawing- the values become more important than getting the exact right color. Every tone leads to just two questions- how light/dark is it, and is it cool or warm?

Here is the original photo.

Self at 58

charcoal and white conte crayon 25" x 16"

I was intrigued with the idea of being quite honest about getting older. So here I am.

I used two small mirrors to get this view, and boy, was it hard to keep my face in the same position! I had to keep moving my head to check my drawing's progress from a bit of a distance. For a long time it seemed I was drawing sections of my face that didn't line up with each other. 

Study of Andrew

charcoal 10"x9"

I've become a new and enthusiastic convert to charcoal drawing. I never liked it until I figured out I can sharpen vine sticks to precise points (duh). 

Here is my brother Andrew, wearing one of his pleasantly inscrutable expressions. It's another study for the larger figure painting I want to start soon. 

Nancy

charcoal 12" x 9"

This is a study for a large painting. It's my mom. I'm afraid she might find it unflattering, but I don't. I find her expression complex and revealing. She's in her eighties, and I think she is still beautiful.  

Lost in Thought

oil on board 8"x6"

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A certain brother of mine once told me that he is bothered by the way I often paint people looking away from me. He'd rather see a portrait of someone looking right back at me/the viewer. Well, I'm a sucker for the contemplative, introspective moment, and I always will be. 

This is a portrait of my niece Raven, who is normally lively and extroverted- and a gymnast. 

Self Portrait (struggle)

graphite 12"x9"

I've always found drawing or painting a self-portrait to be monstrously difficult. I can look at other people's faces calmly and somewhat objectively, but I turn into a slithering pile of self-doubt when I contemplate my own. 

I think this drawing is passable, plus has a nice searching-in-the-dark quality- a grasping at understanding who I am now, at this middle-aged state of being a 55 year old woman.

As just about every woman past the age of 40 must think, it's awfully difficult to get older and begin to feel relatively invisible.  I hope to try many other self-portraits as a way to prove to myself that I'm not invisible at all. 

Summer Plans

oil on board 5"x7"

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At times this was really fun and satisfying to paint, but also very difficult. The patterns in this young woman's hair were wonderful to capture, but overall it sure took a while to get a good balance of light and shadow. The shadowed skin tones needed to be deep enough to keep the backlighting dramatic, but also have a glow from the reflected sun on the waters of the Casco Bay. But now I'm happy with it!

Young Man Tired of his Hometown

oil on board

7"x7"

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"Young Man Tired of his Hometown" says it all, but I could have alternatively titled this "Dreaming of Distant Lands"- but how corny would that be? Corny, but absolutely and positively true.

Over the past month or two I've tried to get back to still life, and have either not felt inspired enough to begin, or happy enough with my attempts to keep from wiping it out. I'm mystifed by this, as I spent almost half a year in 2011 just painting vegetables! My gut feeling about this is that paintings of figures can have more of an emotional impact, and that is what I am after.

Kashmiri Baby

oil on board

6"x6"

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I wanted to keep this painting loose and have a more spontaneous approach than I'd had with the last one. I had to restrain myself from adding the kinds of delicate details that I love, but that can kill the spirit in a painting. I'm pretty happy with the way this one turned out, because I think I kept the plaintive expression of this baby- a baby beyond cuteness, from far away in Kashmir.

Thanks to Steve Evans again- this is the seventh in a series of portraits based on his world portrait photography. 

Nepali Child

oil on board

7"x6"

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Here I found myself wanting to honor the face of this one very particular (and very, very cute) individual, but NOT worry it to death.

I hadn't realized so many people live in Nepal- 26.6 million. The flag of Nepal is the only non-quadrilateral national flag, and it's beautiful:

This is the second in a series of portraits based on the work of the superb photographer Steve Evans.