Thanks for the great response everyone! I really appreciate all the kind words. I am definitely new to the portrait arena so it's good to hear positive feedback from professionals like all of you. I love painting portraits and I have learned a ton from just searching through this website. I know I will need more guidance with the business side of portrait commissions, but I definitely feel confident with the strong foundation of professional artists gathering here.
I wanted to answer some of the questions as well:
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Oh, I have a question for you... It looks evident to me that you have been nurturing the desire of painting your model for a certain time before starting to actually paint her. Is it the case? Have you had the occasion of painting someone that you don't know in a short delay (i.e. without having a lot of time to impregnate yourself of the future painting)?
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I have painted some individuals I didn't know or didn't like very much. It's much more difficult for me to connect to the individual and that is transferred to the canvas. Viewers don't know why they are bored with the portrait...but they are certainly bored with it. After creating a couple paintings like that I now spend a lot of time with individuals before I start painting them. When people come into my studio (even if I have painted them before) I spend about 20-30 minutes just talking with them and getting to know them better. Even if they aren't the nicest of individuals I can still find the good qualities in them and portray those. Even nasty individuals have qualities you can respect like ambition, confidence, etc...
When I was training models were sort of like cattle herded in every day so that we could have something "real" and "anatomical". We knew about their lives a little but there was no interplay between artist and model. I suppose training cannot be any other way, but I was happy when I finally had my own studio.
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So - when are you entering it into a contest?
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....I don't know do you think it would have a chance of winning something? I see some pretty amazing portrait/figure paintings entered in contests. If you have any contest suggestions though perhaps I can enter it and see what happens. Thanks for the vote of confidence!
Thanks again everyone for the encouragement. I read each and every comment.