I've always shied away from portrait painting. I justified my avoidance with remarks like, "That's a different ballgame" or some other equally nonsensical remark. In attending workshops, I would get in a panic if the assignment included a human form. I WAS NOT a portrait painter. Sure, I could stick a distant figure in the scene, not detailed, very impressionistic. Like Momma always said, "You can't get blood out of a turnip." Painting people was simply not in the cards for me. I knew the human figure certainly added life and energy to an otherwise stagnant scene, and I WANTED TO, but it was simply not in my toolkit. However, slowly, very slowly I have realized, or rather the truth has been HAMMERED into me, that the human figure is like a landscape, with planes and blocks of color, and should be approached like any subject---as a group of shapes. I make no claim to having arrived; challenging, even painful, is the process, but I'm not breaking out in a cold sweat these days when trying. My brother asked me to paint his military portrait, and I told him, "I'll try. No guarantees." I'm no where near finished, but the landscape is beginning to look like him.
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