It was Punta Gorda VAC's Portrait Studio day again. Today's model was Trisha. Quite a few people here painted her before, but it was my first time. Overall, I felt it was OK. I got her likeness all right. I tried to control tones. Even though the outcome seems OK, but I know the tones and strokework were not precise enough to be always satisfactory in the first touch. When you need to repaint the same spot, the effect usually is not the most desirable. Like Jeffery Watts says, every stroke has its story.
Compared with many other artists' organizations, I believe Punta Gorda VAC is one of the best in this region. It is well organized and people here are friendly and helpful in spite of the fact that sometimes I do feel it is a little too relaxed and break times are often stretched. Considering socialization is also an important part of life for most artists who came to VAC, I accepted it as a reality. As long as it is not your private studio, you have to put up with other people's needs. That I understand. However, there is at VAC an old gander whom I believe I mentioned before in my blog. He often gets on my nerves. He lives in Punta Gorda so he is an early bird to the portrait studio. He likes to set up his easel right under the model's chin. I believe he could count models' freckles if he wants. Then he takes picture of the model with a camera. For the rest of the session, he mainly paints from his camera.
He is very gentlemanly to ladies. Sometimes, he offers his hand to female model in order to help her step down the high chair when it is time for a break. When a lady artist comes, he often moves his easel to make room for the lady. Once he did that for a lady and, as a result, he came to stand in my path of vision like a billboard in front of me. By then, the studio was packed full and I had to move to the wall and ended up doing a profile of the model.
Today, during the model's last sitting, I knew I had a lot to catch. I needed time to put final touch to her hair together with the background. I also needed to smooth out some spots on the face and so on. By then the gander was done. He skipped the model's last sitting and was putting away stuff. It is not unusual some artists would finish their work earlier than the session was over. However, this guy was eager to share his work with the lady painting in my left-hand front. When he came over, he totally blocked my view. I reminded him that he was in my way but he was too concentrated to hear me and stayed till he finished sharing. Once he was done, I thought that was it and went back to my painting. Unexpectedly, he came over again. This time I had to yell loudly, "Excuse me, but you have blocked my view." And not till other artists joined me in yelling did he realize he stood in the wrong spot. I am not sure if it was a symptom of senility or he was a born lady pleaser. God!
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