Painting from Life: My Toddler

Someone sent me a gentle reminder this morning that while it may be worthwhile to fight for my painting time, it's more important to be spending time with my daughter and enjoying every second, especially while she is young. I completely agree. And I suppose for my blog readers it does seem like I often complain about lack of studio time or not being at the top of my game. Since this is an art blog, I try to post things that are relevant to art, so it can be frustrating when I don't have any new work to post. In truth, I am enjoying every moment with my daughter while she is young, and painting is all part of my desire to capture that. In my life, creating art has been my way of "possessing" or capturing moments. For example, as a young girl, horses were my favorite anim… Read more »

Painting from Life: My Toddler

Guy with a Beard

This guy... Michael Mentler. The Infamous 'M'. :-) Michael runs the Society of Figurative Arts in Carrolton, TX. I have known him for almost five years now and have enjoyed regularly attending his Tuesday portrait painting sessions. We have gotten to be very good friends, and I have enjoyed celebrating with him in his remarkable success as of late (he has been hailed as a "modern-day Leonardo" by Richard Schmid himself!). Michael is an excellent artist and teacher, but he also has an overall look that is begging to be painted! He has posed for such greats as Sherrie McGraw and Rose Frantzen . At SOFA, though we work from all different models week to week, we are always begging Michael to sit for us. This week, our model didn't show, so Michael complied, and I finally … Read more »

Guy with a Beard