Second portrait ever!

Ngaire Winwood · 05-10-2007, 06:41 AM

Recently I had the privilege to attend my first ever portrait training with a workshop with David Kassan. He thankfully came 'down under' for a 5 day workshop at a cute township near Bryon Bay. This is only my second portrait and first from a live model.

Excited by wanting to meet a real portrait artist and watching the demo's each morning proved to be definitely an eye opening experience for me. It has definitely cemented my desire to continue on this path. I have hesitated to place my piece here but have finally gathered the courage to do so. David's training method was to allow each artist to develop with their own skills albiet under minimal guidance, which I truly appreciated in the end, it meant that I had to resolve most issues on my own. His demo of model 'David' was fast tracked for simplicity and the time allowance each day wasn't really enough to get the quality end product as he would have liked.

Here is my version of 'David' a local gallery owner and photo (poor) 16 x 20. I didn't manage to get any decent resource photos to work on once I got home, so I just used my memory to finish it the best I could. All I have to do now is repeat the process and get better at it.

Linda Brandon · 05-10-2007, 10:22 AM

Ngaire, this is a wonderfully solid head! I am so happy that you had the opportunity to study with David and that the workshop was a good experience for you (as it so obviously was). Keep posting your work, I'm really enjoying your progress.

Mischa Milosevic · 05-11-2007, 07:25 PM

Nice job Ngaire! For second portrait ever this is awesome! Good for you.

Dan Landrie · 05-11-2007, 08:09 PM

I love profiles, Ngaire, nicely done.

Alexandra Tyng · 05-11-2007, 08:58 PM

Ngaire, I'm so glad you posted this. You've really caught something about your subject. It doesn't matter about the photos not being good. You can really beat a painting to death trying to finish it from a photo. Just leave it as it is and move to the next one.

Ngaire Winwood · 05-12-2007, 01:50 AM

To all, thank you for your support and encouragements. I really do appreciate it, it is a bit intimidating to be amongst such fantastic skilled artists on this great forum for show and tell time, but I truly appreciate your time and advice towards my meager effort.

Linda, yes I think just being in the same room as a well known portrait artist was exciting enough without even doing a workshop with him as well. In my neck of the woods I just don't get this experience as there are modernist's and landscapers.

Mischa, yes I am proud of it, I think something definitely did rub off on me at the workshop, I just hope what ever it was I can use it again to back up myself at my next attempt.

Dan, most other students ( 6 on each model) chose different frontal positions and there wasn't much space left around the model as I waited till people settled in with their easels, not knowing where to go, I took the last spot in reality. I am too naive to reject the position, to me I just wanted to experience anything really. I am not sure what benefits are in profiles, maybe you would like to enlighten me?

Alexandra, thanks heaps for your comment. In the end I just wanted to get close to a likeness as my skills would allow me at this time of my development. Really I didn't expect too much from myself so I didn't want to be disappointed and just wanted to take in the whole workshop experience with like minded people. Hopefully soon I will see my own mistakes in it and be able to correct myself before doing them repeatedly.