Saturday, August 8, 2009

Sisters

I just finished my painting of my daughters Kristin and Kim. They were such beautiful subjects and I'm afraid I did not do them justice. I have been working on them for a couple of months on and off. And voila I am done.
This is the fifth portrait that I have painted in watercolors. I feel that I am making progress, but I'm not all the way there yet. I feel that if each painting is better than the previous one then I'm going in the right direction.
When painting a portrait I become very intimate with the subjects features. When painting my daughters I already felt intimate with the way they look. But there are challenges to painting people that you know that you do not experience with strangers. You want to capture the essence of the person not only in terms of how they look, but also in terms of how they are. And you truly know how they are.
And when you love your subjects as much as I love my daughters then you put that love into the process of painting and it carries you through the process of creation. Then you only hope that the love shows in the painting. It is a big challenge. But with big challenges come great satisfaction.

2 comments:

Meera Rao said...

great job, Kathy. I like how you used different colors in rendering their hair. Nice smiles too !

Kathy Staicer said...

Thank you so much Meera. I like the smiles too.