Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Painting of Dory (stage 1)


I have started the painting of Dory, she is 68 and a very wonderful looking for her age. She is Spanish and in charge of the janitorial Department of my studio block, I approached her to model and she agreed and will be my model for life painting for the next few weeks. What drew me to her was her white/ grey hair, I haven't painted a woman with such lovely silver lines, so I decided to give this one a go! This Monday she was able to sit for 90 mins, she is more of an active person and said this was the hardest work she has done!

This is the progress so far. she saw the result after 90 mins and wished she had been smiling. I said you can't keep a smile for 90 mins! I am not sure what I want to do with this piece but I am just enjoying the fact that I am painting from life again after a long while of feasting on pictures. It is so liberating to get the model right before you with paint. You get to talk discuss and with your sitter and they watch in amazement as you mix blobs of colour in to flesh tones. One comment she made after watching me dab into so many colours is, "I never knew I had so much colour on my face."

She'll be coming in once a week maybe for the same duration, so I'll keep you posted with the progress.

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