Art of the Portrait Conference - Opening Night

I spent the weekend in Atlanta at the Portrait Society of America's "Art of the Portrait" Conference.  The four day event began with a "face off" where 15 artists in groups of 3 painted 5 different models.  They had about two and a half hours to produce a portrait.  The next day the conference attendees (825 people!) voted on their favorite.  The chosen artist then did a demo for us on Saturday.  (I'll show that soon.)  Here are some of the artists in action.

Michelle Dunaway

Lynn Sanguedolce, Jeff Hein and David Kassan

Quang Ho

Sherrie McGraw

Joseph Todorovitch

More to come...

Weekend In Denver

I spent this past weekend in Denver for the opening of the Oil Painters of America Western Regional Show at Gallery 1261. OPA Master artist Jeff Legg was the juror of awards and you can see the award winners here.  I enjoyed seeing the show, reconnecting with old artist friends and also making some new ones.  The highlight of the weekend for me was watching painting demonstrations by Jeff Legg and Quang Ho.

Here's Jeff arranging his still life for the demo.

He began by drawing dark silhouette shapes on a toned panel.

The painting gets going - working from dark to light.

The finished demo after about two hours work.

In the afternoon Quang Ho - also an OPA Master artist - began his portrait painting demo by rapidly laying in color with no preliminary drawing.  (His model looked to me like she could have stepped out of a Sargent painting!)

Quang slows down as he begins to work on the model's face and make adjustments to the drawing.

The finished demo after about two hours work.

Now I'm inspired to get back to the easel and start painting!