Well, here is a portrait that I have worked on for a couple of years. This is what it looked like about a year to a year-and-a-half ago: I started with a tinted-gesso ground, using burnt umber acrylic paint mixed into the gesso. As you can see, the technique is to develop the highlights and shadows from the tinted ground using only burnt umber and white, and then to add color as one of the last steps.

I am calling it: "Mater ut musa (Portrait of the artist's mother as a young woman)." I painted it from a photograph, which I believe was taken ca. 1977. The photo was taken at an outdoor festival in Oklahoma, during the summer. She was sitting in the bright sun, which was picked up by the ribbon on the hat. I didn't want to include people from the crowd, which surrounded her in the photo.

To focus more attention on the figure I decided to make the background dark. Also, to keep the background from being too flat, I decided to make it mottled. One thing led to another, and now it looks almost like a cloudy night scene. Oh, well! I briefly considered adding a bit of moon peeping over the "clouds," but this wouldn't agree with the lighting on the figure, so I decided against it.

I'm giving it to her in a few days. I hope that she appreciates it.

Here is an update on my "Madonna of the Blue Scarf." I added some "gold"-flake oil paint to the halo, and then changed the background to increase the contrast between it and the halo. You can judge for yourself if this reads any better. I am actually not entirely satisfied, myself. I tried the "gold"-flake oil paint as a simpler option to the more complicated 3-step technique of applying "gold" leaf. But this doesn't have as much reflective "shine" as I would like, so I may try the "gold" leaf, in 6 months, after this paint dries properly.

I participated in a workshop in September, that could have been entitled: "Create your own Rembrandt," led by my portrait teacher, Carin Hebenstreit. I don't remember what the workshop was actually entitled, but the object was to make a close copy of one of the master's works. Carin had chosen a portrait with a very interesting history. Rembrandt had painted a portrait of one of his house maids, then placed it in a window facing the street. Apparently many of the townsfolk believed that it was really a person in the window. There may also have been some scandal about an idle servant, and/or a servant girl wearing jewelry (how scandalous!). About one day into the 3-day workshop my copy looked like this:

But at the end of second day I had brought it to this more or less final state: Had I been able to attend the third day of the workshop, I might have been able to give it a more "finished" look. But it was great fun nonetheless.

Well, it is nearly Thanksgiving. I wish you well for the holidays. WRT to my art classes, I have a couple of portraits to share. The first is of a model named Brian Baxter. When I finished this painting I kept reading in it a sense of sereenity, almost religious in nature. There was something about it that reminded me of Warren Sallman's "Head of Christ." The latter was an image that I saw a lot during my childhood. I'm not sure what I find similar between them. Maybe, quiet composure and seriousness. Anyhow I recognized that something internal was wanting to express a religious feeling.

So, following on the heels of this, I gave creedence to the desire to create a religious image. We had a young woman next as our model: an artist named Kathryn Hinton. She had a soft appeal, which lent itself nicely to this endeavor. So here is my latest. I'm calling it "Madonna with Blue Scarf." This photo is prior to adding gilding to the halo.