Garth, thank you so much. I agree, we have to get Allan over here for a visit! Also, I'm embarrassed because I never asked you how the Union League portrait delivery went. I'll check to see if you posted anything.

Chris, you are so nice to say these things! We can be honorary cousins in art. I learn just as much from you, believe me!

Mari, thank you, too! I really like your use of the word blackboard to describe the background. That really is the effect I wanted. I was thinking of concepts not (yet) realized, and of drawing boards, but I really was aiming for a kind of chalk-on-board effect.

The interplay of 3-d model and background was a lot of fun. It was really trial and error. I had a really definite picture in my mind of the hanging model and how much of it I wanted to include in the painting. I wanted the portrait to go up much higher than the top of my mother's head to emphasize her small size and the large scale of her ideas.

I had an elevation drawing of the city tower and two or three photos of the tower model. I liked the idea of challenging myself to draw the tower model in perspective and still make it look "flat" compared to the actual 3-d hanging model! In the portrait, the viewer's eye level is a little above my mother's head. I chose the photo of the tower whose perspective angle would correspond to the perspective of the rest of the painting when drawn at a certain size, i.e., viewing the middle of the tower straight-on, looking up at the top and down at the base. ( I had to sketch it in several times before I got it the right size. I wanted the base of the tower model to be a continuation of the floor plane, but transitioning from real to conceptual at a nebulous point. These were my intended goals and I hope I accomplished them to some extent. I hope my explanation makes sense. If not, looking at the WIP might shed a little light on this. Anyway, it was fun to do but I had a few nervewracking times when I wiped the whole background out and wasn't sure it was going to work.

Intelligent portrait
 

Such an intelligent portrait. Thank you.

sarah

Sarah, I don't believe we've "met" here on the forum before. It's nice to see you posting. Thanks so much for your comment! I really enjoyed looking at your work (on your website). Nice expressive brushstrokes and appealing use of color.

Hi you,
both of you, it would really make my day to come visit you and see your works in the making. I would love to shake hands with you because your enthusiasm and talent inspire my days. I want to be one of you ;)

Around here, in Denmark, I see very little that scares me in respect of competition. You, in America, have already build up a new tradition of realistic portraiture.

If tradition is "business as usual" I think that I will arrange my own ambuscade and await the trend being washed up on the shore of Denmark. I'll be ready, thanks to your inspiration.

Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - Why, what should be the fear?
I do not set my life at a pin's fee; And for my soul, what can it do to that,
Being a thing immortal as itself? It waves me forth again; I'll follow it.

Horatio - What if it tempt you toward the flood, my lord, Or to the dreadful summit of the cliff That beetles o'er his base into the sea, And there assume some other horrible form, Which might deprive your sovereignty of reason And draw you into madness?
think of it; The very place puts toys of desperation, Without more motive, into every brain That looks so many fathoms to the sea And hears it roar beneath.

Hamlet - It waves me still. Go on, I'll follow thee.

Marcellus - You shall not go, my lord.
Hamlet -. Hold off your hands!
Horatio - Be rul'd; you shall not go.

Hamlet - My fate cries out, And makes each petty artery in this body
As hardy as the Nemean lion's nerve.
Still am I call'd. Unhand me, gentlemen,
By heaven! I'll make a ghost of him that lets me: I say, away!
Go on, I'll follow thee.

Horatio - He waxes desperate with imagination.
Marcellus - Let's follow; 'tis not fit thus to obey him.
Horatio - Have after. To what issue will this come?

Marcellus - Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.

Horatio - Heaven will direct it.
Marcellus - Nay, let's follow him.

Alex: Methinks no danger of madness lies in Allan, if his soul tempt him toward the flood, or the dreadful summit of the cliff. If 'tis true that something is rotten in the State of Denmark, by Heaven, let him take full advantage of this state.

Mike - I too (Methinks), do wax in a state of agreement, desperately.

:D Mike!
It's funny, this made me think of hurricanes rather than Shakespeare. I think you are getting one of our storms now.

Alex, this is so sensitively done, and is imbued with a sense of the sitter's intelligence. The geometric forms, though beautiful and purposeful, must have been a pain in the posterior-o-hedron to render, if you get my drift. Very diligent of you.

The icosohedron reminds me a little of the Hoberman Sphere. Then again, I am so mathematically challenged, I wouldn't know isoscoles from Sophocles. :D

Thank you, Rob!

Well, I know the difference between icoceles and Sophocles, but I never heard of a Hoberman sphere! I guess a trip to the dictionary is in order.

The geometric forms were time-consuming. There were a lot of adjustments along the way. I'd say the only part that really drove me crazy was painting the models on the floor. Getting the perspective, the angles of the stands, the relative size and distance as they went back in space was pretty exhausting! Once all that was correct, then I addressed the problem of how to suggest the forms in paint without putting in too much detail, and how to reduce the amount of detail, lower the values, etc., as they went back in space.

P.S. Math was my worst subject. I wonder how many artists are really good at math.