If you've been on any of my social media channels, you know I've dedicated the month of February to working on portraits. I think capturing a likeness and making a painting look like the actual person is one of the greatest painting challenges there is. For me anyway.
I wanted to dive into portraits back in March of 2020. I won a scholarship to study in Scottsdale for a week with the portrait artist, Zim Lin. I had flown in after careful contemplation and the night before class started, I got an email stating Mr. Lin was stranded in Mexico City and couldn't come into the United States due to the pandemic guidelines. While I knew it was the right thing, it was heartbreaking. I ended up studying with another VERY accomplished artist for the week learning so much. No regrets.
Still, I felt at a loss. I put this goal on the back burner. Last year, I found he was teaching a drawing class in Lowell, Michigan- less than 3 hours away! While it wasn't the painting class I had originally wanted, I booked my class, secured a room for the 4 nights and eagerly waited.
I got notice about a week out the class was cancelled. Again, heartbroken.
So of course, this month, I just decided to go ahead and take the dive into the deep end of this portrait pool on my own. You can see there are some lessons I've learned over the last 15 days. I am working on getting better at the likeness. Still, I feel if I have a bit of guidance, I could get cleaner paintings.
I was perusing the magical internet on Thursday and low and behold, Zim Lin is booked to do a workshop on portrait painting in oil paint in Lowell again in May.
I'm booked. It's bought and paid for. I'm so excited. Sometimes the stars do indeed align. Keep your fingers crossed.
Les.
