Meet Saralinda and Mark

All of last week and this week, I have been and will continue to be painting quick oil-sketches of passersby on masonite panels outside of the Corcoran Gallery and THE ARC. The finished sketches are bolted to the outside of one of the HFA studios erected in front of the Gallery. When the project comes down at the end of August, people are invited to come back and take their loose portrait sketches free of charge!

Saralinda and Mark stopped by my easel at the Corcoran on Saturday after their visits to the George Bellows and Richard Diebenkorn exhibits in town. They braved cold rain water splashing off the tarps and down their backs to have their quick likenesses painted, and I am so glad that they did! It was a true highlight of the week to meet this hilarious couple! As the Director of School Programs for an art museum and an attorney representing artists, Saralinda and Mark knew their stuff in artistically, and yet kept me laughing with stories about marital negotiations over kitchen paint colors and mother-in-laws!

Meeting them confirmed again how lucky I am to have this opportunity to get to know people that I might otherwise have missed. Thanks for the chuckles and conversation, Saralinda and Mark!

(These portrait sketches are part of a series of quick little oil paintings that I have been making in preparation for the eighth large portrait in my project AS IS. You can learn more about the project by clicking here.)

Hot Town Summer in the City

The Habitat for Artists crew started building two temporary studios in front of the Corcoran on Wednesday. Their mission is to connect the "mysterious" artist with the public by literally taking the creative studio space to the streets. My portrait project, AS IS, is based on the under-rated importance of face-to-face interaction, and so I am honored to be one of the artists who will be working out of these studios over the next few weeks!

The last three sweltering days have been spent painting quick, loose, oil sketches of passersby in preparation for one of the large, finished portraits that I will begin late next week. Each small painting is posted on the outside of one of the studios. When HFA disassembles the spaces at the end of August, people will be free to take their portraits home. I like the idea of gifting tangible records of conversations.

 I have already met such interesting people while painting these rapid, little paintings including a diamond-diver turner limo-driver, and a South Korean student who can't get enough of typhoons! It's amazing to think that had I not been set up to be painting their portraits, I probably would have just passed by these people without a second thought. Next week, I will be posting "Meet So-and-So" posts with pictures and snippets of information about people and their portraits.

Happy Weekend to You, Friends!

Thank you to Darlene for sneaking this picture of me working on one of the sketches today. The heat broke with a few sprinkles, but people sitting for their portraits stayed dry under a makeshift canopy, and we were all happy for the cooler temperatures!