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Step Four - Live Portraits

To Photo or not to photo...

Despite my initial plan to complete this portrait without photographs, "real life" has caused me to change course. I have taken photographs of the subject in order to reduce the extensive number of hours that it takes to bring an individual to life on canvas. The subjects that sat for the grand masters of the Renaissance had less distractions than the modern day cornucopia of electronic choices such as your reading this note on a computer screen.

Photos are often a poor rendition of the person and serve simply to hold the person and lighting in the position I need to further the painting along. What photos lack in capturing the essence of a person, they make up for in gaining the motionless, timeless composition of a moment frozen in time.

It can be very tiring for any subject to sit for the hours upon hours that the artist wants her to sit. With the subject captured on film, I can now paint continuously for three hours without letting the subject take a break.

The current detail painting shows that the seven hours of painting over the past couple of days has been focused on the face. The size of the body matches better the size of the head. Much more detail needs to be done on the hands, gown, legs and overall form of the body, but time constraints are reduced now considerably. The subject and I can operate with less sittings and less need to co-ordinate our schedules.

The final touch-ups will be done from life as I feel that in order to truly capture the essence of a person, one must ideally start and finish with the subject present.

View a wide range of Commissioned Artwork by Ellen Cowie.
View a wide range of Additional Artwork by Ellen Cowie.

Ellen Cowie
Peterborough, Ontario

E-mail: ellencowie@yahoo.ca

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