I have been wanting to learn portrait painting for awhile now. I have been admiring portraits that I see on Social Media, watching some YouTube videos of artists posting a portion of their process, studying color mixing of different skin tones and have watched several instructional DVD's on portrait painting.
So I decided to take the plunge and I signed up for a portrait workshop online. This one was in acrylics and I have never painted with acrylics. And I have never done a portrait. This was not the best combination for me. For me to learn something new at my age and stage, I have to really watch, observe, see, then again watch, observe, see, then have someone explain it to me step by step over and over again, then watch, observe, see!!! You get the picture!
Anyway I tried! The poor teacher tried! I started 4 portraits in acrylics. I cheated on one and just did the back view as I was so frustrated with acrylics.
Then they dried and I played around with my oil paints on them. That was little better, at least I knew the medium.
I learned a big lesson: go in person to a workshop to try something new!!! My teacher agreed!!
All in all, I am glad I took the step. It got me to paint some portraits. Progress!!
Today's painting is from a Master Painter that I absolutely love, Nicolai Fechin. He was trained in the Russian manner and painted sensitive and dramatic portraits of men, woman and children. He represented humanity.
He was born in Kazan, Russia in 1881. He trained under Ilya Repin and had a successful art career in St. Petersburg, Russia . He married his wife Alexandra in 1913 and had a daughter named Eya the next year. In 1923, he emigrated to the US with his family to New York City. He was very successful in NYC. He sold over $30,000 worth of paintings in his first 4 months and this was in the 1920's. After developing tuberculosis his doctor advised he move to a dry climate. He then moved to Taos, New Mexico in 1926 and later to California where he continued to paint and had an art school. In Taos, he painted mostly Native and Spanish-Americans. Taos was a quiet, little known village at that time. Now it is the world famous "Art Colony of the Southwest." The adobe house he lived in is now used as the Taos Art Museum.
Fechin died in October of 1955,
at his home in Santa Monica with his dog Pepper at the age of 73, after a very successful career. His wife had divorced him in 20 years earlier and his daughter Eya was two months away from having her first baby, which would have been his only grandchild. The Russian artist Sergei Bongart bought the Santa Monica canyon studio where Fechin had lived and painted there until his own death in 1985.
Some of Fechin's paintings and portraits along with his work table and easel are on display in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum. The rest of his works are displayed in different countries with the largest collection back in his homeland of Kazan, Russia.
I decided to copy this Master with my first portrait in oil. I chose Fechin's Girl with Red Hair.
