It's BERNIE

Of course it's Bernie.  I had to do it, what an opportunity.  Since I've been enjoying seeing all of the fun and creative images of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders on Inauguration Day, I had to try one.  As you probably know, the photo of Bernie set off thousands of photoshopped versions shared on social media.  He's been relocated across time, inserted into historical moments, famous paintings, as well as everyday situations.  Our Saturday painting group organizer suggested a portrait of someone famous for this week's prompt.  Perfect!  I decided to move Bernie to California to do some plein air painting.  Maybe it's because I've been missing painting outside for almost a year now.   I think my Bernie is at Arlington Garden on a cold day for painting outside.  

Watercolor and pen sketch

photo by Brendan Smialowski

Mick!

A month ago I wrote about my first commission in a post titled "Mick's Dogs".  There is more to the story!  When I delivered the watercolor of Mick's three dogs to him he was thrilled.  The piece was a gift for his wife.  As we chatted at the coffee shop, which I painted in my July 5th post "Plein Air Painting", Mick said he had another project for me.  I was anxious to hear what it was since the dog portrait went well.  Mick wanted a portrait of himself.  Not a current portrait, but one of himself when he was in the Irish Army many years ago.  He didn't really have a photo for reference.  He emailed a YouTube video titled Royal Ulster Constabulary - A Tribute and said he wanted me to use the uniform and weapon shown at a certain minute mark in the video.  Mick also sent a few old photos of himself (which weren't quite that old) so I could insert his face on the proper uniform.  I was nervous since I hadn't done a personal portrait and this was going to be difficult.  I put it off.  I had a workshop coming up with Alvaro Castagnet and thought maybe I would learn some secret formula from him to help with this commission.  I put it off longer since I had another workshop coming up where I surly would learn something to give me confidence to try the portrait.  Neither workshop was about portrait painting.  I finally plunged in after Mick asked several times about it.  It took a couple weeks to finish.  I painted smallish areas, let them dry, and came back with more color and value while trying to have some of my own style show.  I was happy with it finally and hoped it looked like a much younger Mick and that the weapon was correct.  Thankfully Mick was pleased and said it did look like him and the weapon was right.  Great news!

When Blog Posts Meet

After my last post, "Artists and Photos" about the Paint My Photo (PMP) website, I planned to follow up with a figure/portrait I painted from a photo on the site by Franklin.  It was a photo of a clarinetist street musician and inspired my first watercolor of a figure.  I had recently seen the Watercolor West 2011 show in which there were some wonderful figure paintings and portraits.  I wanted to try one and am posting my clarinetist here.  I made it pretty colorful which I thought fit the subject.    Meanwhile.....

Meanwhile, my friend Terry Freemark added a comment on my previous post of the "found" vacationing ladies photos in "Summer Trips~" asking if I might paint them!  This was a surprise to me since it hadn't entered my mind.  Terry has painted many watercolor portraits from black & white photos and hers are really wonderful.  Hmmm.  What occurred to me was possibly painting some of the "found" photobooth snapshots I've come across over the years.  I've added some good ones below.  They are very small, 1.5" x 2", kind of hard to see detail.  I probably couldn't improve on the look of these.  So cool.