Gosh, I love painting people’s faces. I get to explore every nook and cranny of their eyes, their smile lines, their noses. I love to play with their hair, especially hair like Agnes’ rich, shiny, curly black hair. I learn so much about a person by painting their portrait. You’d be surprised, even with people that I already know well, as I inch across the terrain of their cheeks and foreheads, it’s quite possible that I become even more intimately acquainted with that acreage than they are.
Every November, a group of artists that I know via the website Http://wetcanvas.com do a portrait swap. This year, Agnes is my partner, she has to paint me, I have to paint her. It’s a nice break from my self-imposed studies an opportunity to branch out a bit. Do any of you do exchanges like this?
note: I’m sorry, I said it was a contest, but it’s not a contest at all, it’s a SWAP!
5 responses to “Annual Portrait Contest – Agnes”
Lisa, absolutely, it happens to painters. Sometimes all I have to do is put the painting in the scanner, scan it and look on my computer monitor. And EEEEK! I forgot something drastic, like an ear!! and looking at it in this different way, I can suddenly see it very differently.
Beautiful portrait! Can’t wait to see the portrait of you when the swap is done!
A friend of mine to paints in oils recently emailed me that she was painting a portrait of her mother – she wrote “I’m not sure I like looking at her for such a long time”!
I don’t paint, but I do needlework. Sometimes when I’ve designed a sampler on paper, then stitched it, then had it framed, I hang it on a wall and back away from it and it’s a complete surprise to me, because I’ve been so concentrated on the detail that I had no idea what the whole looked like. Does this ever happen with watercolours? Possibly not, as if you had no idea what the whole painting was going to look like, you wouldn’t know where to start!
Agnes looks like a cheerful person with just a touch of mischief about her!!
I assume it’s a good likeness… It certainly is appealing!!
Waiting to see your portrait.
Great portrait, Mimi; will we get to see what the one of you looks like too?