"Portrait of Natalie", 16x20, oil on linen

"Portrait of Natalie", 16x20, oil on linen

Well, it took a couple weeks, but I finally decided that I should try and finish my portrait of Natalie. Natalie was our model during the Mary Minifie workshop and she was the best model that I have ever had. She never moved, and hardly even blinked. For 4 days!

Here is a picture of Mary doing her demo of Natalie:


Mary's technique is very labor -intensive. She studied at The Boston School and I really liked her palette, which includes many of the same beautiful colors that I already use, with the exception of black. The end result is a beautiful glowing quality in the portrait that is achieved through painstaking paint application and impeccable technique. I am not sure I'll ever warm up to the idea of using black, but aside from that, I was very impressed with everything about Mary's finesse and beautiful technique.

Mary is the first teacher that I ever had who actually took the time to help me understand how to soften my edge-work. When you reach a certain level of technique, edgework is a MAJOR factor. I knew I needed to learn more about this, and I asked Mary outright how to do it.

Today I took out my painting of Natalie from a few weeks ago, and decided to practice what Mary had taught me. Here is what the painting looked like when I brought it home from the workshop:



Poor Natalie! I took a beautiful girl, and made her look like a wraith! The one thing that Mary taught us, is to think about something in the subject matter that intrigues you, or that is special in some way, and focus on highlighting that and making it your focus throughout the painting.

Natalie is a lovely girl, (in addition to being an awesome model). She has a long face, natural curly hair, high cheekbones, beautiful hazel eyes and full lips. I decided right away to focus on her eyes and make those green-blue eyes the focal point of my portrait.



In addition to her eyes, there was a lot of green reflected back into her skin tones, as a result of the green top she was wearing. The final painting shows her beautiful fair skin tones, but the camera couldn't capture it well.

I was very happy with my finished product and I think that Natalie would be, too.

As far as Mary Minifie goes, she was an awesome teacher, and I will always be grateful that she took the time with each and every student to help them become better painters. I think my edgework has improved tremendously thanks to Mary. Now I just need more practice...