Portrait Artist Forum - Marina study from life

Here is a companion piece to Alex Tyng's "Marina from life" :
http://forum.portraitartist.com/showthread.php?t=8704

It was a thrill and honor to be a part of the select group that got to paint our fellow Forum great, Marina Dieul, last month, at the Philadelphia Sketch Club! Marina came all the way from Montreal to teach us about creative speedlight portrait photography, in an inspiring all day workshop. The following day, all we asked her to do was sit still!

We had a three hour morning session, although I came an hour late, following a doctor's appointment. With the remaining two hours, I did the best I could, and worked very small, only 8 x 6 inches on a linen covered panel.

The panel was pre-primed, but white and untoned. As an alla-prima, this made it tricky to get all the darker passages to behave over the white ground. I think I spent more time just poking and retouching thin spots, than mastering the painting process.

The grass was always greener on the next easel too, since everyone else had a substantial head start over me. It was intimidating. Although, it seemed that was a shared experience among us all. We had never painted together before, and everyone had their formidable reputations before them.

Moreover, we had none other than Marina Dieul keeping an eye on us as we painted (though Marina says she felt not free to glance around while posing). Marina was so generous and kind to pose for us, and she was an exemplary model.

While I know perfectly well there are no actual blues and purples in Marina's dark salt and pepper hair, these color notes somehow manifested themselves in the shadows.

I had a lot of shadows to denote from the side angle position I was painting, so at one point on a break, Simon, in our group, came over and exclaimed "That's Cool!" I responded the painting was indeed cool. The color temperature was not so hot!

Although there are a few quirky drawing inconsistencies (I kept redrawing it throughout the session), the one tool I came to really appreciate was a #4 Series 7 Kolinsky Sable from Winsor and Newton. It drew like magic for me!

I feel we all as a group benefitted from this life portrait session with Marina. I certainly was encouraged by this experience. We will have to do more like this in the future. The camaraderie was wonderful.

Sorry it took me a month to post this!

Garth

oh yes, there's: Simon, Alex, Marina, Addie, Ellen, Jim, John, Barbara, and Garth, in the group shot.