I would guess that Non Commissioned Portrait will probably be the most entered category. Like I said in earlier posts I think I did some of my best work here, and again it would be a great honor to even be mentioned.
This is of course "Gondola's and Gelato" the painting of Donna I've been working on all year and just finished. I really don't expect to get any recognition, but I'm extremely happy with this painting. My hero, mentor, and friend, Geoffrey Laurence once told me that his goal in life is to create one great painting a year. Geoff, this is this years.
Like I said in my last post I like to fall in love with my paintings. That was not hard with this subject, but the painting and I had a small love hate spell. The background was so hard trying to paint it out of focus to keep the viewer's attention on Donna. The water was so strange. With most water you paint some blue and green and then slap a bunch of white on it to replicate the sunlight's reflections. With this water the light is coming from around the bend in the canal and is deep in the water giving you that great green/blue water. Hard to recreate. Then there's the sweater. It was loaned to Donna by our host in out B & B. It was a very cold and overcast day and we had been to Mirano. Sweaters and lace are so hard to paint and this one was off the hard scale.
I realized I got this painting right when I was painting Donna's right eye. It was so strange. You don't always know when your finished, but I'm painting and then I get this strange feeling that Donna was looking at me. It was if the portrait was alive. I stopped right there, and signed the painting.
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