Heather almost done

Heather is almost done. I'm at the "looking at it" stage, where I look at it~ in various lights from all angles etc for a day or two, and fix anything that leaps out at me. There is nothing worse that varnishing a piece and then noticing... something, anything that needs fixing.

I'm afraid that I'm way behind on the piece for the charity auction. Figure work always trumps 'other' in my painting interests, I love the challenge of getting it right.

A friend asked me recently, which is your favourite painting, my answer was: the one I'm working on. That may seem flip but, for me painting is a very meditative process. Even when a work is frustrating me, there is deep joy in the doing. I learn something in each piece, it is that learning and the work it's self, not the completing that are my joy.

I hope I've caught the essence of Heather in this work. Capturing a little bit of the persons soul is the mark of good portraiture, some of the most famous paintings of all time (ie: Mona Lisa) are portraits that have done just that.

Our fascination with capturing a persons likeness is very old. One of, if not the oldest non-fresco (not on a wall) paintings is a portrait of a Greco-Egyptian woman, that is very stirring. You can see who this woman was, just by looking at her portrait. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/portrait_painting we don't know her name, but we know her. R.