Playing with color – Original painting

Challenging myself to not use black or brown and to allow some of the pencil marks to show through.

As a painter of realism and a lover of human faces it is a challenge to paint without my traditional palette. No browns, no blacks, no blues, and no skin tones.

And no photo or real model. Simply an image developed via the pencil and my imagination. Does she have a basis in reality? Am I sketching my muse or perhaps even bits of me?

I look each time I create one of these faces based on a quick sketch with my pencil to try to determine where it comes from. As if I can not just allow my imagination to have been the creator. Always feeling there is an answer there, for me, if only I could peer closer.

And so I sketch another, and paint her, and another and so on. It is as much about me as it is about the creative act.

Someone on twitter asked me what inspires me to paint. This is a part of that. The challenge to capture the essence; or a bit of it anyway; when painting a realistic portrait. And the challenge to understand, read, learn about myself when I paint something from my imagination.

Yes, there is challenge in attempting technique, or using a new medium. And there is challenge in improving my drawing skills and my sketching. But the big deal is about the human condition. My condition, and that of everyone else I encounter!

To purchase any of these original faces visit my studio!