Portraits...

Let me first start off by saying that I really love this painting. It's a watercolor I did of a friend of mines little girl. I think it looks like her daughter (is she not so beautiful!) so that was a great surprise for me when I completed it because I find portraits really hard to do. First, I'm always nervous...like what if I insult the person and they think it's awful? They think I must think they look crazy? OR even worse they think I'm the worst artist to walk the face of the earth. What if they look too old? That is so easy to do...a little bit of shading can turn to crows feet faster than Judge Judy can quip about urine and her shoes. The other thing is getting paid for portraits. There is a lot of thought that goes into them since I'm not a "natural" at it. I put too much time into them for what I ask to be paid but on the flip side if they hate it they should'nt have to pay for it. But then I just put all this time into it for nothing. What am I going to do with a portrait of your neice Bethany? Over the years and with lots of practice I've found a few tricks that seem to help me. Especially when doing a portrait of a child. Many years ago I took a class called Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. It was based on a book that I've found to be one of the greatest books around for new artists who are trying to teach themselves how to draw. The idea is that you turn the image upside down and it will change what your eye sees so that your brain does not register it as the literal object but more shapes and shadows. It REALLY works. Hopefully I'll get to do more portraits in the future. It seems like when Christmas gets close people start looking for unique things and ask about them. Maybe with more practice I won't have to worry so much about making a mistake. You know what they say about practice! :-)