I usually work from photos. I don’t consider myself a photographer, but I prefer to work from my own photographs. Luckily, I have a camera that takes a lot of the guess work out of setting exposure, f-stop and shutter speed. But the bigger challenge is getting pictures of my subjects that are good compositions for painting. Usually I ‘ambush’ my subjects, grabbing opportunities as they arise.
In the case of Ron Gallegos and his wife Diane Goldenstein, I had been talking to them over the last few years about doing a portrait of them. When I finally arranged a photo session for them, at their office, they could not have been more enthusiastic or cooperative. We were able to ‘play’ together on different poses in different spots in the building. I got a lot of great pics of them, a few of which you can see here. I’m working on a separate portrait of Diane now (more on that in future blog entries).
I chose the pic of Ron looking up as my choice for the painting. In my next entry, I’ll talk about how I prepare the photo for the drawing that I’ll do before I start painting.
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