Painting Portraits

In December I joined the online artist community Sktchy. It is an app where people upload their photos (mostly portraits) for artists of all skill levels to use as inspiration. It has been so much fun drawing and painting from photos - something that has never really interested me.

My high school art teacher had taught me to never share the inspiration or reference photo that I used to do a piece of artwork. As soon as you do, viewers will compare the two to see if you have captured the likeness, which could make it difficult to appreciate the artwork on its own.

This app links your drawing directly to the inspiration photo, so you have no choice - people are going to see both. Despite that fact, I've really enjoyed using the app. It was a lot less stressful for me to draw strangers than to try to draw a family member, and because I could relax, I learned a lot more. 

These are the drawings/paintings that I've done so far, in order:

Winter Cardinals

I received a lovely surprise the other day when the sketchbook company I use, Stillman and Birn, liked my cardinal painting on Instagram and asked to repost it on their Instagram feed, Facebook page, and blog. I had to write a brief artist statement too. Needless to say, I was pretty darn excited!

Here is their blog post with my statement.