The last two life painting sessions were of a lovely model in an exotic head scarf from India, holding a silver pitcher. From where I was in the room though, I simply could not pass up the obvious Vermeer reference and decided to do only the head.

this is 16"X20" oil on panel, painted from life.
It looks like the head dress is kind of off perspective although I believe it may have been wrapped differently each session

Painting from Life is extremely important.
For me it is essential, that as a realistic painter, I go directly to nature to learn how she works. I do not want to paint a picture of a photographic representation's of nature I want to paint paintings of MY representation's of nature... Big difference, after all I have two eyes.


24"X20" Oil on linen

This absolutely stunning model was with my painting group for two, three hour sessions and even with that amount of time I still did not feel I had long enough. I focused mostly on the face and feel it is pretty successful, although looking at it now I wish I would not have left her left hand looking like a crab claw.

They say that painting portraits is one of the most difficult tasks for the painter, in fact J. S. Sargent (one of my favorite painters) said "Every time I paint a portrait I lose a friend" With that in mind I would like to share with you the last few friends I've lost

These two paintings were actually supposed to be only one, our model turned out to be a little bit too much of a mover for me, I decided to do seperate paintings over the 2 3-hours live sessions from different vantage points.
This is a 3 hour 16X20 Oil painting from life

This next particular portrait was interesting in that I was facing directly into the spotlight, giving me an interesting lighting setup, as well as forcing me to squint even more than I normally do while painting. This is another 3 hour 16X20 Oil painting

Here is a small painting I did on paper. It is 5"x8" and took about an hour to complete, I have not had much time to paint lately and thought doing this was a good way to keep in practice.

This particular painting was my first plein air painting, which is just a fancy way of saying "I painted it outside" it is about 14"X18" and done in oil, painted with a combination of brushes, knives and rags, the local insects helped as well.





These woods are near Turning Point park in Rochester, NY. I wanted to capture the wonderful dappled light showing through the forest, it was challenging, considering the lighting was changing constantly. I was lucky enough to also have a figure to include, creating a more enjoyable painting .