Santi

This is Santi. He's an urban sketching friend living in Barcelona, Spain.

This is another "collaborative portrait" where I drew Santi's portrait and then digitally mashed it up with one of Santi's sketches.

12x18 mixed media and epoxy with Artrage. #211

Opening Reception for The Portrait Project

OK friends, it's time to hang your portraits and have a party!

Opening Reception for The Portrait Project at Carver Hill Art Gallery in Rockland, Maine. Friday November 6 from 5-8pm. All 250 portraits will be on display. Come say hello, bring a friend, enjoy food and drink, and see yourself on the walls. You can even buy your portrait if you want ($150). Hope to see you there!

Jane

This is Jane. She was Alex's teacher when he was 4 years old. My son had, what Jane termed as, "separation anxiety". I would take Alex to school in the morning and walk him in to her classroom and then spend the next 5 minutes trying to shake him off my leg. She worked with both of us, patiently trying out different strategies to make his transition to school smoother. She makes learning fun.

12x12 watercolor and ink. #210

Terri

This is Terri. She's an appraiser, which is how I first met her.Then I came to learn that she's also a writer and a watercolor painter. For a couple of months one summer we played lawn croquet with a big group of friends. She's intelligent and she speaks her mind. It's great when those two qualities go together. I love hearing what she has to say.

The more I do the portraits, the better I am getting with getting the likeness of the subject. I think I missed the mark on this one but I got the attitude and feeling I was after.

15x22 watercolor and pencil. #209

Gretchen

This is Gretchen. She is a self described "Bleeding heart liberal enviro-geek sailor girl". She can also sing really well. I met her through working with her husband, a carpenter and builder that I have worked with on a few renovation projects.

This portrait was originally done in my 8x10 Grand Portrait Sketchbook in an airplane traveling from Texas to Maine. Once I photographed it and had a digital image, I overlaid it onto the original handwritten sheet music of "Heroic Polonaise" in A-flat major, Op. 53 – by Chopin.

15x10 pencil and watercolor with Artrage. #208

Doug

This is Doug. We went out to breakfast a few days before he moved to Hawaii and afterwards we were goofing around outside the restaurant taking pictures. I told him all of his facebook pictures were too damn happy so he gave me the Doug stink eye and I knew I had my portrait.

I'm kind of sad he moved away but he's promised me I have a place to stay whenever I come to Hawaii so that makes me happy. See you in February, Doug! :)

15x22 pencil and watercolor on tinted Bockingford watercolor paper. #206

Sully

This is Sully. He and my son are good friends. They've known each other since they were like 4 or 5 I think. He is, hands down, one of the nicest kids I have ever met.

11x15 graphite and watercolor with a little Artrage. #205

Liz

This is Liz. She's an urban sketching friend living in Sydney, Australia. I met her at an Urban sketching conference in Santo Domingo a few years ago.

12x16 pencil and watercolor. #204

Christine

This is Christine. I don't usually title my portraits but I think I'll title this one "The Representative". It's kind of a reference to Andrew Wyeth's painting, "The German", which it was loosely based on. I just saw Wyeth's painting this past weekend so it was fresh in my mind.

Christine is the State Representative of the district just north of me.

22x15 pencil, ink and watercolor. #203

Jack

This is Jack. He's an architect that lives and works out in the sticks.

When I first moved to Maine, I worked as a draftsman in Jack's office. It was there, with Jack, that I really learned how to draw. Not the computer kind of drawing that most architects were doing but drawing by hand - pencil in hand to large sheets of vellum. We drew buildings, of course - but these buildings and houses Jack conceived of and designed were like fine furniture or sculptures that you could live in - beautifully thoughtful, inspiring and magical places. These buildings and the landscapes they were situated in demanded that they be drawn beautifully to communicate their stature and sense of place. Jack does this better than anyone I know. He taught and inspired me to put "life" into the drawings we produced and I carry that intention with me to this day. Thank you Jack.

22x15 pencil and watercolor. #202

Marcia

This is Marcia. I met her a few years ago at an Urban Sketching conference in Santo Domingo, DR. As I was drawing her I was remembering that was she was using these strange waxy colorful pastel crayons at the conference. I asked her about them and she told me they were called Neocolor wax pastels. I meant to get some when I got back home.

This is another "collaborative portrait" where the portrait is my painting and the background is her work.

I don't know if she's a saint or not but she has a lovely aura.

11x16 pencil, watercolor, and acrylic. #201

Jackie

This is Jackie.We went to high school together but I didn't really know her back then. I can't really remember a single exchange we had. Maybe we stayed too close to our circle of friends or we just never made the effort to get to know each other. Now we're Facebook friends and I see what a fun, caring and interesting person she is. If I could go back and do things differently, I think I would have made the effort to be real friends with Jackie.

15x11 watercolor, ink and pencil on Arches hot press watercolor paper.

Arron

This is Arron. He's a tall, athletic, good looking thirty something doctor from Australia. He's also a cyclist and Ironman triathlete. We met 5 years ago cycling in Italy. We were both staying in the same hotel that serves as the "headquarters of the Italian Cycling Center.

One day we climbed Monte Grappa together. Monte Grappa is one of the hardest climbs in Italy. It's long and steep and it's often one of the climbs in the Giro d'Italia (Italy's Tour de France). Within the first kilometer I knew I was out of my league cycling with this guy (actually, I knew that the moment I first laid eyes on him). But Arron is easily one of the friendliest, easy-going cyclists I've ridden with. He was chatting with me up the first few kilometers. I was breathing hard so I couldn't talk. I remember he was riding ahead of me, turned around facing me and no hands on his handlebars. I remember feeling inferior when he did that.

20x15 Arcrylic and Artrage. #199

Sarah

This is Sarah. She's an architect friend. I met her when I moved to Maine about 15 years ago. We were in a small study group made up of architects, designers, builders, and a writer. We were reading "The Nature of Order", a series of 4 books by Christopher Alexander - almost two thousand pages - that attempts to unite the art of building with the nature of the universe.We met for over 3 years, once a month, and we still didn't finish the books.

15x20 acrylic on handmade watercolor paper. #198