I love to paint portraits , truthfully not everyone's portrait because some people like a straight portrait. I understand that but I prefer to work on something a little different. When i meet someone I am taken with for one reason or another or when i get a commission and we click then I
want to paint your portrait . I want to see if what i see is what you see and I've been lucky to have fun clients, great friends and just a great desire to keep painting. Everyday i feel I improve and its a very good feeling.
~ Everybody wants to rule the world, a portrait
I have yet to take a decent picture of this but I finished a portrait of my very good friend Jason Von Victor. When we met I was immediately taken by just , that way about him. What a truly lovely person. Smart assy and hilarious , serious and not so much all at the same time, Not to mention the drive and the passion .... what a refreshing fucking human being. Some people seem to go by , without an appreciation for the greatness around them. In order to raise yourself to a better standard you have to keep your eyes wide open. See what's out there and try to learn from it , though you may never reach that goal you know that at least you haven't missed out on an opportunity to just learn something. Let it pass you by and mediocrity will eat you alive. He seems to me to be the kind of man that is always learning , or trying his best to anyways. Meeting him made me want to paint him and I hope that its a compliment for him. It is my first ever portrait in acrylic paint. Being as that i can't shake this cough I have been staying away from the oils.
(Painless J ), "Welcome to your life"
Jason Von Victor is a tattoo artist at
Marlowe Ink . He has been tattooing my latest traditional pieces on me and I couldn't be happier. You can see his many talents posted at the Marlowe link where you can see his portfolio. The traditional pieces I painted around him are pieces that represent different parts of his life. I had talked to him prior to starting the portrait and got an idea of what I wanted to do and how it should look. This is also my first portrait in acrylic. I usually do them in oils. I prefer not to do a straight portrait , not that i don't appreciate the skill it takes to do that , it just seems to lack that certain something that says that I had a hand in it.
Other portraits I really enjoyed doing were
Mrs. Batson
Commissioned by Allen Batson in remembrance of his mother. I painted one for him and he had me do one for his brother too. He came to me with the queen of hearts idea and all i wanted was to do her some honor and not disappoint him. You can only hope that you know what is going on in your clients mind and that you had a good connection. He was very pleased and that made me very happy. I definitely felt close to her and even missed her when she was gone. The frames I made from bass wood and plaster and then silver leafed them. Mrs Batson was quite the card player , so i kept with the theme.
A portrait of
Martha
Martha's mom Nancy came to me with a request to paint her daughter so she can remember 21 year old Martha for always. Martha is the most together girl I have ever met. Mom and daughter both made me smile a lot. Nancy said ... this is the face that Martha makes to me... its that face , the " oh mom" face. I jokingly said , "we'll call this piece... Shut up Martha ! Just shut up!!" Needless to say , those two were a blast to work with
Katie~~~the tasteful nude portrait
always fun to paint...
Katie , so young and lovely and just too much fun to be with. Seriously her youthful exuberance is like magic. You just can't help but fall in love with her. An excellent model and a good friend. The skin tones were really fun to paint. I wish I had such pretty glowing skin.
Self Portraits
you can see my self portraits in some of my
older posts.
