Autumn 2022: Artists Portraits Continue and New Explorations

The ongoing Local Artists portrait series continues apace, with several more completed and a few more in the pipeline (reference photos received or pending). The exhibit at the Ukiah Public Library is set for May and June 2023.
Meanwhile, during the course of a public multi-artist marathon to raise funds for local arts organizations (I drew for 24 hours….) I had a lot of reference photos prepared to work from, and two in particular from the Museum by Sktchy app of fractured figures were a lot of fun to work from in ink pens and markers. I think I will look into creating my own images to work from this way.

Summer 2022: Portraits of Artists Begins

In the Mixed Media gallery here, you’ll find some locals, including a collage artist, an artist who is our high school’s excellent art teacher, and our local library manager.
As an outgrowth of this, I have started a series on portraits of local artists. I have started with Laura Fogg, a world famous art quilter and teacher as well as an energetic advocate of the arts in our rural county.
Many area artists have enthusiastically agreed to be painted and the Ukiah Public Library will exhibit my show next spring!

June 2022: Three different portraits

A key project for me was completing my self portrait by early June, so it would be dry enough to submit to Art Center Ukiah’s July show. I wanted to do a fairly classical portrait, and ended up going very dark on background in order to let the face come forward.
At the same time, I was working on another portrait of Tori, from a photo in which she was simply part of a larger composition. This ended up expressing itself with a looseness I have only achieved with the mixed media portraits, and I am very pleased with it.
So I started the portrait of my husband, Stuart, in a classical mode, but the dark background just wasn’t working for me. It took a while to figure out how to get a looser feel, and fortunately an old photo of him in the Fantasy Records vault provided the key to a loosely brushed background.