A portrait like no other

(C) 2016 Dale DiMauro

Recently, I was thinning out some stuff in my studio as I often do prior to winter. By chance, I came upon a watercolor book of portraits I did a few years back. Some of the portraits were even done in a hotel room when traveling. They are far from perfect as far as the proportions of the facial features(i.e. eyes, ears, nose etc.) but I really like the quirky traits of the individuals portrayed. My art mentor Gerard Doucette thinks they have an Alice Neel-like quality to them. There is a fluidness to the pigments as applied to the paper which gives a pleasing quality to the simple compositions. These were painted on Arches watercolor paper which is one of my favorite surfaces to use.

In this portrait, the nose is clearly a bit over-sized but I love the skin color and gradations of light and pigment particularly, out by the tip of his nose. I will mention that the nose is a difficult subject to depict as it really has no exterior lines to it's construction yet is so centrally located.

Most days I try to at least sketch a face in pencil if nothing else while the television is on or waiting at a medical appointment. It is very rewarding to look back at a depiction of an individual whether in pencil or watercolor. I look back to see if I caught some characteristic of that particular individual and what I would do differently, if anything.