I greatly admire the work of portrait artists, since I know it takes a high level of skill to capture the human face. My ‘portraits’ are largely limited to dogs, cats, and wild animals. However, I occasionally include people as the focal point in my paintings – what I call ‘characters.’ Rather than depicting a face in a formal pose, I prefer to show people involved in some type of activity. Sometimes the character is anonymous, like the little girl on the beach I featured for my watercolor painting called “In Her Own World.” At the opposite end of the scale, some of my figures are recognizable for who they are, as with my award-winning painting “Jerry Van, Music Man.”
One of my first character paintings was “Cleaning The Conch.” Rick and I were vacationing in the Bahamas and had just returned from a session of scuba diving. Our boat driver Greg was under the dock, brushing off a conch shell which one of the other divers had found. I was immediately taken by the scene, intrigued by the way the sunlight was streaming through the wooden boards above, the fabric folds in Greg’s clothing, the variations in his skin tones, the sunlight on the shell, the smoothness of the wet sand, and the textures in the post and rocks. I took lots of reference photos (so long ago I was using film) and used them to create one of the largest watercolor paintings I have ever done, 28″ x 36″. This painting won awards in both the Jacksonville FL Watercolor Society Exhibit and annual exhibition of the Florida Watercolor Society. The original sold long ago.
“Molly-By-The-Sea” holds a dear place in my heart since it depicts my niece as a little girl (she’s now in her 20’s). We were all visiting my parents in Hampton, New Hampshire, and walked to the beach where the low tide exposed interesting pools of water reflecting the blue sky. Molly’s striking red hair created a perfect accent to the blues in the scene, particularly because the complement of blue on a color wheel is orange. Her skin tones were close to the hues in some of the rocks and her turquiose/white top fit the color palette perfectly. I was inspired to photograph her for a future painting, and have long since been happy that I captured the moment.
Molly is the youngest of her generation in my family so I decided this painting might please my parents (her grandparents). I surprised them with it as a gift for their 50th wedding anniversary. My parents have now passed away, so Molly’s mom, my sister Jean, displays this painting. Someday it will likely belong to Molly!
I was attending a re-enactment at Fort Loudoun State Park in East Tennessee, back in 2001. A costumed soldier was at the open window of one of the rustic period buildings, with his head bowed, deep in thought. As always, the irregular weathered boards and rusty hinges appealed to my senses, and the young man’s red vest was just the right flash of color among the otherwise neutral tones. When the 9/11 attack on the Twin Towers occurred just 2 days after I had photographed this re-enactor, many prayers and soldiers were on my mind. I titled this painting “A Soldier’s Prayer.” From a technical point of view, I painted the wood siding in cool grey shades then used warmer grey/brown tones for the window shutters, to draw more emphasis to the figure. The original painting, done in acrylics used transparently on watercolor paper, is sold.
“When She Was Three” turned out to be a dynamic painting which always gets comments when I display it. Little Aubrey was innocently playing at the edge of the gently flowing Tellico River. The sunlight on her soft hair was the first thing which caught my eye, and I crouched down to her eye level to photograph her quietly, so as not to distract her. I painted this in acrylics on canvas, using a lot of pure white for the bright highlights in her fine whispy hair, the folds of her shirt, the sparkles on the water, and the pebbles under foot. You can see a time-lapse slide show of my painting process for When She Was Three on the home page of my online art gallery. The original painting sold to her family, but I have giclee prints on canvas for sale which matched the original perfectly.
Image Size: 16″ x 20″ for $225 unframed; $325 framed
Image Size: 8″ x 10″ for $75 unframed; $125 framed
I’ve written lots in this blog about my painting “In The Spotlight” during the last year, since it won a major award for me in the Tennessee Watercolor Society biennial exhibition then traveled around the state for the remainder of the year. I actually sold the painting to someone who was reminded of his own son by the image of my friend Mike, showing that my ‘characters’ can have a broad appeal, perhaps more so than a real portrait. I have 8″ x 10″ open edition prints of this painting for sale for $18.
