Engaged

Engaged 14x11 Original Oil on Panel

This lovely young lady is Whitney Nagle. She is engaged to be married to Alex Pasquini from my previous post. Whitney liked the idea of wistfully gazing out the window for her portrait. What makes her choice even more interesting is that when her portrait was hung next to Alex's it looks like she is gazing at him. Kind of fun considering their young love.

Most of the portraits I have done for this project have been very direct, frontal poses. I found this one to be especially challenging because of the three quarter view. It changes everything. One cannot rely on symmetry as a check for accuracy and the shapes change quite a bit with the smallest deviation from the pose, I also found painting the eyes looking away difficult. Add to that the very direct lighting and creating volume becomes a challenge. I feel like I learned a lot from this one and hope to do more like it.