Portrait of Trish, charcoal, 2012

Portrait of Story, charcoal, 2012

Trish wore her hair in braids in a Renaissance manner and combined a print top that worked with the theme. We focused on her profile such as in many portraits done in that period. Story placed sunglasses atop her head and generally evoked summertime in January, for which we were grateful.
As I have become more familiar with these models, I think these likenesses and their fidelity to the subjects has evolved very well. The spirit and character of the person seems to have grown.
It brings to mind questions regarding portraiture and the mediums of photography and painting/drawing. A photograph is considered the more real copy generally, yet the coming to know a subject that occurs through a slower working medium adds a dimension beyond physical realism.

The Young Patriot, charcoal, 40x32 cm., 2012

A linen shirt and sleeve ruffles completed the costume. Trish tied back her hair for an 18th century look. It first made me think of an English lord, then a patriot due to the blue color, simple style of hair and collar and the direction of her gaze. She looks out and upward rather than down at us.
I then realized we had an ambiguous character before us. A young male, full of enthusiasm, purpose and ideal? Or was this a female who, with those same motivations plus a few more, had donned male garb in order to carry out a male-defined role unavailable to her as a young woman? A colonial spy, perhaps, or a horse-backed messenger shuttling between Washington and Rochambeau.
I also was reminded (back in England) of Gwyneth Paltrow in trousers, pretending to be Thomas Kent, a young actor who takes the part of Romeo in Wil Shakespeare’s new play. Passion, poetry and love fill her soul to the extent that she breaks the Queen’s rule banishing women from acting in the theater, dressing as a young man to carry it off.

"Renee With Turban", graphite, 22x16 cm, 2012

The Portrait With a Hat class is already two weeks into the winter session at Newport Art Museum. We got started with a turban wearing model (Renee) who wore an Egyptian style dress, but with turban and coin jewelery from Afghanistan. This is a small sketch of Renee in this pose.

Portrait of a Woman in a Silk Robe, conte, 23x16 cm, 2011.

Our model in Portrait With A Hat did not show up with a hat this week. Rather, she wore a vintage silk robe and slippers with an elegant black hair band. We set up a boudoir scene and proceeded to draw in our last class of the year. The folds of silk fabric were an integral part of the pose. It looked great as a full length pose, but I chose to get in closer to the head and face, thus cropping out limbs and feet.

-  Samuel Clemens

"Story as Van Dyck's Lady With a Rose", charcoal, 18x24 in, 2011

Our next venture into art history was from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, Anthony Van Dyck’s “Portrait of  a Lady With a Rose”. My charcoal depicts a very different looking lady, our model Story who last week pretended to be a Vermeer painting.

Portrait With a Hat is a class in portraiture with featured head-wear and some costume that I teach at the Newport Art Museum. It is a three hour session, and I only run the pose for one session. There are no encores- you either have got it down by the end of the evening or you haven’t.

This does make the work a sketch by nature. One can’t pretend to do what Vermeer did in under three hours; he employed undertones with vibrant over-glazes and many speculate that his work was done entirely with camera obscura. I did enjoy this session enough to want to set up something like it for a more extended painting. And putting a turban on a model was my idea behind this class in the first place.

Here then is my sketch in oil.

"Story after Vermeer", oil on board, 46x36 cm, 2011.

Below is a photograph of the pose. I do not usually like to use photographs as aids in painting, but I have included it in this post for reference and because I thought you might be curious.

Story after Vermeer

C in Mary Poppins Hat, conte, 23x31cm (9x12in), 2011

In Portrait With a Hat class last night, a friend modeled her own hat with a decidedly Mary Poppins look. She did not levitate or magically clean up the studio, but she did have that prim and happy combination to go with the hat that reminds me of Mary. She read contentedly while we worked away on our paintings and drawings.