Before beginning this blend of realistic and abstract oil portraiture, Lorre and Edward visited my studio. We envisioned how natural it would be to portray their daughter in a beachy scene. So that’s how we penned the contract.
Then, shortly afterwards they invited me to their casually elegant waterside home. Suddenly I stepped into an oasis where the air itself hummed with creativity. The walls were adorned with a symphony of original paintings that were peaceful and refreshing. They gave the place a … I want to call it … very “here and now” feeling. What could I possibly mean by that?
When you are gazing at original paint strokes, you feel a little piece of time from each one. As you stand there and look at it, you are pulled in to a “now” that can extend for several minutes. Even if you don’t look carefully at some of them, you know they are still emanating those individual moments that are there for your discovery if you want.
There was something else amazing about these paintings. They were mostly abstract. Yet obviously, with my oil portraiture, I would be introducing something realistic into this world of pure imagination. Should I make Molly’s portrait a dreamscape of her own and weave her reality in with this abstract cosmos? Hmmm…
You know, I totally agree with those who say that a painting is its own universe. For example, even the frame, whose job it is to be the separation between the room and the painting—like the shoreline that defines the sea—should be part of that universe. Yet here I was, contemplating the audacious act of inviting the elements of the room to dash across my oil portrait. Leave it to artists to break their own rules. But maybe this is the way to make a realistic figure and an ornate, gold-foil Renaissance frame converse harmoniously with all those abstracts.
More recently, the little girl’s mother sent me this note:
“The portrait seemed amazing when we first got it, but now, 2 years later, it is even more enjoyable because she has changed so much and it’s so neat to see her at that time in her life. You completely captured her. Everyone who views it thinks it is spectacular. One person stood it front of it awed and said, ‘An Artist Painted That?!’ Friends have also remarked on the abstract background because it’s not like what you usually do—but the colors work so well in my house, and all our other paintings in the house are abstract in different degrees. It’s perfect.”
Related Posts:
Beach Time Sweetness Is Second Oil Portrait for Grandmother
Children Oil Portraits: Two Little Angels
Remember Youthful Innocence in Oil Portraits of Children
You can also see this example of oil portraiture in the Children Oil Portraits Gallery.
