Full on a delicious dinner of Spicy Eggplant and butter curry tofu from Sarah’s kitchen, I opened up my Vincent Van Gogh book for inspiration. A painting was in order!
I stumbled upon a series Van Gogh did of his mailman and inspiration struck. I wanted to paint Sarah and she was willing, so we set up in her living room. She watched the charming movie, Chocolate, while I sat across the room in her beautiful vintage chair with the perfect vantage point.
My setup was easy since I was using a leftover palette from my painting the day before. The colors were close enough to skin tone and it worked out beautifully. The painting itself took around three hours!
I began by blocking in Sarah’s face with monochromatic values and careful measurements taken by holding my brush out to compare angles and proportions. Adding color was a breeze; I just needed to match the values and I was confident it would turn out. Indeed.
VOILA! Sarah’s beautiful face, lit by gentle TV light on a March evening.
