Letting Go

"Difficult Departure," by Lea Keohane, 2008. All Rights Reserved.

Sometimes letting go can be hard, especially when whatever it was that you once had was so good you thought it would last forever, you never even questioned the possibility of losing it. I usually do not plan my drawings before I sit down to do them, but this one was a little different. I was walking through the park, taking in the trees and whatever music was playing on my iPod at the time, trying to feel connected to the world, when this image came to me, or something like it. My original idea included both of the figures having wings, but I thought that had a different connotation than what I intended, so I dropped the wings and got on with the drawing. "Difficult Departure" is approximately 9.5" x 9", drawn with Pantone Tria markers and a Sharpie on paper.

Portraiture & Contest!

Last year around this time, I was painting this. A portrait of my good friend Alisha Marchewka. She is a high school art teacher, and a brilliant artist. So she came up with the idea of painting portraits of each other and exchanging them as holiday presents. Fun! I will have to take a picture of the one she did of me as well--it is really awesome!

I am obviously by no means a photo-realist when it comes to painting. I have the ability to do a pretty life-like rendering if necessary, but it's really just not something that I enjoy. I do, however, love painting people, and as you can see from most of my work it is very figurative. Usually the people I paint are in my head, but I have been thinking a lot lately about doing more portraits. Some that I just randomly want to make, but also custom portraits.

What I would be offering would not be traditional portraiture. It would be highly stylized, like the one above (keep in mind that I know Alisha well & put some of her personality into the painting, which I may not be able to do as much with strangers), or like this one.

Alright, now that you've seen some examples, take a look at the poll at the top right of my blog and cast your vote! Then put a comment in this post to let me know that you voted. On November 23, I will randomly choose 1 voter, who will win a free owl pendant! Thanks for the input!