I painted this portrait of my very close friend (for whom I created the nature baby shower invites) for her birthday. The reference I used is actually a profile photo I loved (so beware facebook friends! I might swipe your photos and paint them…)! I felt it was begging to be drawn and painted… I wonder if other portrait artists feel that way. I’m happy to have painted this; whenever I paint I always think to myself “oh yeah, this is what I should be doing”, but then life and other creative-but-more- “purposeful” endeavors seem to get in the way. I do think that my other creative pursuits are helping me figure out subject matter and my own personal style, which is useful. I certainly wish I could “loosen up” my technique. I’ve been struggling with this since high school, but I do think if I just painted more I could get it down. I’m always so tight and precise in my work, and I’m really curious about exploring how to express something with the least amount of lines possible, and revealing brushstrokes and medium. For example, in this painting I decided to make the peacock feather earrings have dripped paint because I want to emphasize the medium—the paint. My sketches are usually much looser than my finished paintings and drawings, but my finished work is always much more accurate, so I suppose my challenge is to keep the liveliness of my sketching while maintaining the level of accuracy I am going for… or perhaps I can let go of some of that accuracy? Just because I can make something accurate, does that mean I should? Is that dog-like obedience I have to render my source the thing that is keeping me from having the loose style I want to explore? I’m torn, because I know I can definitely still improve my accuracy, and I know I want to explore that as well, but I think it may take me in the opposite direction of where I ultimately want to be. An exercise in accuracy feels a little outmoded in a world full of camera phones; we have immediate access to pixel perfect accuracy. But painting is still something that someone has to do by hand, even with all the filters out there…

original study sketch