3 Ladies

I am currently working on 3 paintings that each happen to focus on the image of a single female form.

The first is a painting of my daughter's American girl doll. My daughter thought of this painting. She thought it would be fun to see her dad do a life-size portrait of her doll done in the same way and manner that he paints people.

So we staged a photo shoot. Lulu was the art director making decisions about lighting, clothing, hair, pose etc. She definitely styled the image. I have also had the benefit of having her doll here at the studio for an extended visit so I have been able to paint from life as well.

When the painting is complete, my son Sam is going to sell it for us on ebay. Of course he has negotiated his portion of the proceeds for his effort.

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The second painting features Olivia. She is the youngest of 3 daughters of my friend, Kaili. Kaili has commissioned a portrait of each of her daughters from me and this is the first. The original idea was to have all 3 daughters in the same painting. However, we had so much trouble getting them all in the same room at the same time that we decided to paint then separately. Now that the decision has been made to separate them, I am going to paint each of the daughters in their own "style".

I am very pleased with the quiet refined quality that this piece has become. I have always been inspired by artists like Ingre who can communicate so much psychological presence with rich sensitivity and quality of the edges of things.

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The third painting is Mother Teresa. This is probably the 8th or 9th painting of Mather Teresa that I painted. This was completed and installed in a nearby store for religious supplies.  Each time I paint her I seem to be able to add new techniques to my repetoir.  Most of these nuances of painting are too subtle to be seen on an image here.  It is very satisfying to be able to develop my technique even after 30  years of painting.   They are very please with the results and have asked me to paint a portrait of Jesus. And so I have but that is a subject for a different blog entry.