"Master of the Hunt" (oil on stretched canvas; 20" x 16")

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Claire, from France, is a sculptor who occasionally models. Here she is dressed as the Master of the Hunt. By the way, she is not the master herself, but hunts nevertheless in Leesburg, VA You can see a bit of her black top hat, but unfortunately her long, slender, ballerina-like legs in black boots are cut off in this half-length portrait. The painting was done from life during Danni Dawson's portrait painting class at the Art League School in Alexandria, VA.

"Detail from Vermeer's Girl with a Red Hat" (oil on linen; 10" x 8")

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The painting is the copy of a detail from "Girl with a Red Hat" (c. 1665–1666) by the Dutch Old Master Johannes Vermeer.  The original hangs in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC.

"Girl with a Red Hat" is a rather small painting (9.1" × 7.1").  I was indeed shocked at the size when I first saw it at the NGA, even for Vermeer, whose masterpieces are known for their intimate scale.  My copy is of a slightly larger size, a tiny bit of the bottom cropped off, along with a simplified background, to make it a version of the original.  It is seen as one of a number of Vermeer's tronies – depictions of models fancifully dressed that were not intended to be portraits of specific, identifiable subjects.
 

"Detail from Vermeer's 'Girl with a Pearl Earing'" (oil on linen; 10" x 8")

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The painting is the copy of a detail from "Girl with a Pearl Earing" (1665) by the Dutch Old Master Johannes Vermeer. The original hangs in the Mauritshuis in The Hague in the Netherlands.

The most beloved painting by Vermeer is a tronie, the Dutch 17th-century description of a 'head' that was not meant to be a portrait. It depicts a European girl wearing an exotic dress, an oriental turban, and an improbably large pearl earring.

In case you are wondering about these copies of masterpieces I have been posting lately, they are for my own pleasure and education. I carefully select my favorite paintings of Old and Modern masters and copy details from them as best as I can, observing the brushstrokes, color blending, facial modeling, and so on. I sometimes go to a museum if it is nearby to look at the originals for accurate coloring and take my own pictures. It has been highly educational and rewarding process so far, and I intend to do many more for the next few years. Perhaps trips to Amsterdam, London, Paris, Rome, New York, etc. are in order?

"Gazelle" (oil on stretched canvas; 20" x 16")

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Here is another portrait I painted in a two-week period in May in Danni Dawson's portrait painting class.  The beautiful African-American model posed in a purple dress she made herself.  I had fun painting her braided hair as well as the satiny fabric.

"Baseball Player" (oil on stretched canvas; 14" x 11")

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As I took a month off from blogging, not from painting, I have a backlog of paintings to share.  The above portrait was done in two-week periods during Danni Dawson's portrait painting class. 

The handsome model posed as a baseball player at rest, without a shirt.  Cropped as a head-and-shoulders portrait, it didn't quite make sense.  So I made him up as the St. Louis Cardinals player!  Somehow, I dropped the letter "t" in the cap; my apologies to the Cardinals fans.  Don't you like the model's sly, side-long glance?

The Collage of My March 2016 Paintings

The Collage of My March 2016 Paintings

Another busy month has gone by.  Last month I worked on a lot of portraits and cityscape paintings.  How do you like the collage of my March paintings? Which is your favorite?