Jordana-NYC Workshop Demo Painting

[Marvin Mattelson]

Meet Jordana. This portrait was painted during my 2008 New York City workshop which ended last week. This painting was developed over five days of painting during the twelve day workshop. I did the underpainting on the first day and I laid in color on my second day of painting. I continued to refine the painting the last three days. All this while explaining exactly what I was doing, and why.

[Linda Brandon]

Marvin, this is spectacular, a very beautiful and subtle piece of work with great control. Thanks for giving us these closeups - I'll come back to look at this often.

[Alexandra Tyng]

Lovely, Marvin! What a great face she has. You must have enjoyed painting her.

[John Reidy]

Oh, how nice. I would say it is to be expected but that almost sounds like an insult. Every painting I catch of yours exceeds my expectations.

I, too, thank you for these close ups.

[Marvin Mattelson]

Thank you Linda. I appreciate your kind remarks. I was surprised how far I was actually able to take this painting, considering it was a class demonstration.

Thanks Alex. Jordana is indeed a very interesting and intriguing person and she and I magically clicked. She's has a lot of energy and is very creative in her own right. Her character is both external as well as internal. I believe that a strong connection to my sitter does indeed make a big difference.

John, thanks, as always, for your sentiments. I'm glad I'm exceeding someone's expectations. For me, each painting is a such a battle, trying to get the canvas to coincide with my vision and push further still. As I continue to refine the painting, I'm constantly making a myriad of adjustments, each getting smaller and smaller. Interestingly, sometimes the minutest of strokes can have the greatest effect. Whenever this happened in the workshop, my students would mockingly ooh and ah! It was this workshop's signature running gag. One of the things I try to get across to my students is that in the end, patience is our greatest weapon. The race goes not to the swiftest, but the surest.

[Margaret Ferguson]

What a beautiful classical image, her character really shines through. I love how you've handled the paint and your palette.

[Patricia Joyce]

In Marvin's workshop, when he is painting, it reminds me of a golf tournament, everyone so very quiet and intensely watching. So in the Atlanta class we would whisper, "he is choosing his #2 Silver Ruby Satin Filbert...a slight pickup of value 8, not too yellow, not to cool, not to warm, not too gray..holding the paintbrush, studying the canvas...he hits the tip of the nose...what a stroke...

I was thinking of you during your two weeks Marvin, wishing I were there. Your painting is gaspingly beautiful and the color is so wonderful, I imagine you must have enjoyed hanging up different colored backdrops and hitting on this perfect shade for her skintones. Can you show us some of your students' works? Please, please???

[David Draime]

As always, just beautiful! Done from life and so full of life!

[Marvin Mattelson]

Margaret, Patty and David, thank you all very much for your flattering comments. Always much appreciated. As usual I feel that the subtlety of the color notes do not come through online.

Patty, I have to process and size the pictures I took of the student's work and I will try to do so as soon as I get a moment. This group of students was very enthusiastic and quite vocal, so the workshop demos sounded more like a soccer match than a golf tournament. Not a lot of whispering with this bunch. Regarding the backdrop color, Jordana had posed for my foundation painting class at the end of the semester, so I was very anxious to have her be the demo model in my workshop, and I knew exactly which color I wanted.

[Marvin Mattelson]

Hi Patty,

I posted some of my students' work from my 2008 Summer Workshops here in the workshop discussion area: http://forum.portraitartist.com/show...1551#post81551