Watercolor – Portrait

At the recent Winter Springs Festival of the Arts, I was interviewed by a TV news personality, Christine, Fox 35 Entertainment Reporter. She was kind enough to allow me to take a few reference photos so I could paint her portrait. The morning light was shining on her face and I believe I captured the light.













Detail:

Watercolor – Venice Series

Thanks again to Roger a UK artist who has allowed me to use his reference photographs of Venice. In the past few months I have painted two Venice paintings.

In these two paintings I have tried to capture the atmosphere of the morning on the first one and twilight on the other one.

Watercolor – More Watercolor Portraits

The following are recent portraits I have painted in the last few months. Some are painted in a very tight realistic style, while others are fresh and loosely painted. What I love about faces is each one is different and I try to capture the character of the person. I believe I am now able to capture the mood and emotion of the person in that instant. All were done from reference photos.

Most of you visiting this blog know I regularly attend life drawing sessions. I am improving my skills to accomplish portraiture from life in watercolor. In today’s busy world, many of my clients do not have time to sit for a portrait. Thus, I am concentrating on painting loose fresh portraits in a life sessions I attend. Soon I will post some of my recent attempts to do this in a short time frame.

Yes, this is all part of my journey as an artist. I encourage all of you to draw and paint from life. I belive the skills you learn from each drawing and painting from life will really move you down the path of fine art.

Watercolor – Plein Air Painting (Painting in the Great Outdoors)

The art journey I’m on, in my opinion, requires me to become more proficient at painting outdoors. Painting in the great outdoors is something that I strive to become better at. I finally have arranged my “Plein Air” field kit into a manageable load, and it easy for me to carry all the stuff into the great outdoors.

While I am best known locally for my watercolor portraits, I also paint Florida landscapes and nautical scenes. Most of these painting are accomplished in my studio from reference photos I take.

So, I am determined to get better at plein air painting. To do this means I need to go out and paint plein air as much as possible. One of the problems with plein air painting is once on location the artist sees too much information in the scene. You can be overwhelmed with the view, and because the light is changing so quickly, one has to learn to paint fast and proficiently. I was told a long time ago by a very accomplished artist that every painting will not turn out well and not to be too hard on myself when it does not!

It has been a long hot summer here in Florida, and now the weather is cooler and I have had a chance to get out and paint. Below are a few recent plein air paintings that were fun to paint.