100 OIL PORTRAITS IN 100 DAYS - Catherine, 74/100, © Carol Nelson Fine Art

Day 74

This is Catherine who is an expert in needlecrafts - see her Etsy shop at http://www.etsy.com/shop/knitwitwoolies where she has an amazing assortment of beautiful hand made hats and other items. She is also the mother of Brittnee, 40/100. You can see a strong family resemblance.
Yesterday I did a colorful knit hat on Marie, today it's a scarf on Catherine.
For purchase information, please see my website.

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Exciting news: I have created an account with Fine Art America. Now you can order prints of paintings I have already done. FAA is a really cool site that gives YOU control over how you want your print to look - on stretched canvas, matted and framed, or rolled in a tube. You can also order photo note cards. So far I have only uploaded portraits 1-50. More will be posted soon.

Did you buy a portrait and wish you had two so you could share it with someone? The prints might be the way to go. Want some VERY personalized note cards? The prints would make excellent gifts. Click on the Fine Art America widget on the sidebar to the right.

100 OIL PORTRAITS IN 100 DAYS - Marie, 73/100, © Carol Nelson Fine Art

Day 73

The person who submitted this photo asked that I paint Marie very colorfully. That I did. I proclaimed that I would never do another really senior person after all the trouble I had painting my 92 year old Aunt Trude (39/100). I guess I learned a thing or two on that portrait because this one seemed to work a little easier. I especially loved painting her hat.
For purchase information, please see my website.

Exciting news: I have created an account with Fine Art America. Now you can order prints of paintings I have already done. FAA is a really cool site that gives YOU control over how you want your print to look - on stretched canvas, matted and framed, or rolled in a tube. You can also order photo note cards. So far I have only uploaded portraits 1-50. More will be posted soon.

Did you buy a portrait and wish you had two so you could share it with someone? The prints might be the way to go. Want some VERY personalized note cards? The prints would make excellent gifts. Click on the Fine Art America widget on the sidebar to the right.

100 OIL PORTRAITS IN 100 DAYS - Becky, 72/100, © Carol Nelson Fine Art

Day 72
I love this artistic photo of Becky and, of course, I'm drawn to the dramatic lighting and the unusual pose. The lighting is similar to what David (70/100) did with his photo. For purchase information, please see my website.
Becky is an artist herself - see her blog at artofzinkibaru.blogspot.com.

And the winner is...(drumroll)....MADDIE, 62/100. I think that cute little face was too hard to resist. Thank you all for your votes

100 OIL PORTRAITS IN 100 DAYS - Connie, 71/100, © Carol Nelson Fine Art

Day 71

Remember the portrait I did of Lisa, 69/100, with the white face and multicolor hair? This one is kind of the opposite approach: white hair and multicolor face. My husband asked "What do those people think of those crazy colors?" I said by now they all know they will get the unexpected.
For purchase information, please see my website.

Voting closes on Sunday night. If you haven't reviewed portraits 61-70, please scroll down on my blog (you'll have to skip over the abstracts) and choose your favorite. YOU ARE THE JUDGE. Email your choice to carolnelsonfineart@comcast.net.

Speaking of judging, it is harder than you would think. I haven't seen one single art show where I agreed with all of the judge's choices. I recently judged a show for a local art guild. So many excellent paintings had to be passed over. If I were to judge the SAME show again, I probably would have some totally different choices. I tried to apply the same artistic criteria to each painting, but they don't all appeal to you in the same way. A painting is more than a display of technical painting skills - there's an undeniable emotional appeal that will make some works tug at you a little more than others.

100 OIL PORTRAITS IN 100 DAYS - David, 70/100, © Carol Nelson Fine Art

Day 70

This is an artist in my local artist's guild. He obviously listened well to my instructions about lighting his photo. This was a lot of fun to paint with the dramatic light and shadow. For purchase information, please see my website.

I have been working on the photo book I'm going to publish after completion of all these portraits. So far, it's looking really good.

Time to vote!! This completes another group of 10. Please scroll all the way back to the portraits starting from March 2nd - Michelle - 61/100, Maddie- 62/100, Lauren- 63/100, Jodi- 64/100, and Charlie-65/100. Then skip to March 19th with Mitzi, Sharron, Ed, Lisa and David today. This particular group of 10 has several of my favorites so good luck! Email your choice to me at carolnelsonfineart@comcast.net.

100 OIL PORTRAITS IN 100 DAYS - Lisa, /100, Carol Nelson Fine Art

Day 69

There is an advantage to making my own rules. Remember, I said you don't HAVE to buy the portrait and that I would paint it in the colors I wanted, if I chose to paint it at all. Burt sent me a black and white photo of his lovely wife, Lisa. Color is an integral part of this project as it is in all of my paintings, so what was I to do in B&W?

Her face is three colors: black, white, and Paynes gray (which I love, btw). Any other color you see on the face is because there is a pink underpainting that shows through a bit. The hair is every other color on my palette!! What a blast I had painting this!!

You might think she just stepped off a spaceship from Pandora, but I think of it more of a study in color theory. Very modern, creative and edgy. Actually, I think Cindy Lauper's hair looked very similar to this on a recent episode of The Apprentice.

For purchase information, please see my website.

100 OIL PORTRAITS IN 100 DAYS - Ed, 68/100, Carol Nelson Fine Art

Day 68
This portrait takes the cake. It was, hands down, the most difficult one I've done so far. Those sunglasses are positively diabolical. I'm still not sure if I pulled them off. Each lens is a little abstract painting. I spent twice a long on this painting as I do on most of them.

The lighting is great. I love the way the sun shines on the edge of his face and beard turning them white. Artist, Gwen Bell sent me this photo. If she ever asks for photos for a project like mine, I'm going to search for a real doozy! LOL

For purchase information, please see my website.

100 OIL PORTRAITS IN 100 DAYS - Sharron, 67/100, Carol Nelson Fine Art

Day 67

This lovely lady is the mother of my daughter's husband, Drouin (14/100.) Sharron and her husband Lee live in Queensland, Australia now, although they used to live in Denver. I knew I could relate to her the minute I met her because we're both stretching to be 5 feet tall.

I called Dru to ask him what color his mother's eyes were since I couldn't tell from the photo (and I didn't remember). He didn't know! Then he called back later to say they were hazel. I think it's the curse of the hazel-eyed people. Their eye color depends on what they're wearing, so nobody really knows what color their eyes are.

For purchase information, please see my website.

100 OIL PORTRAITS IN 100 DAYS - Mitzi, 66/100, Carol Nelson Fine Art

Day 66

I'm back!! Time to polish off the rest of these portraits. I liked painting this portrait of Mitzi because of the somewhat unusual lighting coming straight down. It appears that she took this photo of herself in the mirror holding the camera off to the side. Her expression is one of total concentration.
Peach and purple is a favorite color combo of mine, so might as well start off with my fav. For purchase information on this painting, please see my website.

My husband is doing very well after his kidney transplant. He still tires out really fast, but everyting is WORKING perfectly. Thanks again for all the kind words and thoughts.

Reviews of recent workshop

Some of the participants at my recent Metals and Mixed Media workshop have written some very thorough reviews of the things they learned. See the blogs of Saundra Lane Galloway and Nancy Standlee and it's practically like taking the workshop yourself!

Metals and Mixed Media workshop - Arvada, CO

For two days we assembled our metals, foils, metal leaf, art papers, nails, brads, tyvek, and whatever else we could find on our textured panels. I might have overwhelmed them a bit with all the information on the first day, but by the second day they were pros. Well, maybe not pros yet, but they had a good understanding of the materials and the processes.

This delightful group of artists was eager to learn new techniques and produced some very attractive bozzettos. By the end of the workshop I was losing my voice, but I think everyone went home with several examples of artwork they had never done before. Good times.

My portrait project will resume shortly. I think the break for the workshop, where I worked in a totally different medium and style, was a good one for me. I'm ready to attack the 35 remaining portraits with renewed vigor. Stay tuned.

Terra Firma 2, mixed media geologic abstract diptych, © Carol Nelson Fine Art

This commissioned diptych is sold. The client is the ideal person to work with. She has never seen my work in person, but studied all the geologic abstracts on my website very carefully. She told me the dimensions, the colors, and metals she was looking for.

She commented about what aspects of several of my previous paintings appealed to her, so I had a very good idea of what she wanted. She sent me photos of where the painting will hang. When you're dealing in abstract work, it's somewhat challenging to describe what you want in precise terms.

I did a series of bozzettos for her to pick a design that appealed to her. The final painting is actually quite close to the design she chose.

Poppy Patterns, 1038, textured acrylic mixed media poppy painting, © Carol Nelson Fine Art

All you portrait lovers are now thinking "What the ____?" Here we have a textured acrylic I did a few weeks ago. This 36x18 inch mixed media floral painting combines heavy texture effects on the flower petals, grid pattern rice paper, and metal leaf accents in a muted, earth tone palette on gallery wrap canvas. For purchase information, please see my website or email me at carolnelsonfineart@comcast.net.

I'm afraid I need to take a week off from the portraits. They will resume where I left off one week from today. The reason for this is that I am overwhelmed - trying to do too many things at once. My husband's twice weekly visits to the doctor - he can't drive himself yet, take time. I'm giving a two day workshop on Metals and Mixed Media next Friday and Saturday. I need extra time to prepare for that workshop.

I really hate that I have to take this pause because I wanted the title of my upcoming book to be 100 Portraits in 100 Days. Now I guess I'll just have to call it just 100 Portraits, or maybe
100 Portraits in 100 Non-consecutive Days. LOL Or 100 Portraits in 100 Days With a Week Off in the Middle. Ha Let me know what the title should be.

100 OIL PORTRAITS IN 100 DAYS - Charlie, 65/100, © Carol Nelson Fine Art

Day 65

Charlie looks like a happy little guy. He is the brother of Meigs 60/100. I left out the hands in this cropped photo because you can't really see enough of them to contribute to the composition.
For purchase information please see my website.

100 OIL PORTRAITS IN 100 DAYS - Jodi, 64/100, © Carol Nelson Fine Art

Day 64

This is Jodi. Since her photo was taken outside in front of some foliage, she reminds me of a wood nymph - not that I've ever SEEN a wood nymph. I usually have a plain colored background, but on this one I put some leaf forms in there. It just seemed like the thing to do. For purchase information, please see my website, or email me at carolnelsonfineart@comcast.net.

The WINNER of the last group of ten by ONE vote was Stape, 52/100. Then two were tied for second. That was really close.

100 OIL PORTRAITS IN 100 DAYS - Lauren, 63/100, © Carol Nelson Fine Art

Day 63

Another sweet face! This photo appealed to me of course because of the lighting. I guess I just like to make my life difficult. It's a fine line between making it look like sunlight streaming on her face and warpaint! I'm not sure if I succeeded totally on this one. One way to paint this would have been to paint the face then add the sun stripes afterward on top - maybe I should have done it that way.
Instead I painted the face leaving the sun stripes unpainted until I mixed the proper color and then painted them in. For purchase information on this portrait, please see my website, or email me at carolnelsonfineart@comcast.net.

Question for my readers: Why is it that people prefer a painted portrait over a photograph? The camera is much more accurate. Some say I captured the spirit of the person, but I don't personally know most of my portrait subjects, and I am working from a photograph, not real life.
I do study the photograph VERY carefully, but still, it is only one image of that person.
I'm curious to hear your responses to this question.

100 OIL PORTRAITS IN 100 DAYS - Maddie, 62/100, © Carol Nelson Fine Art

Day 62

The minute I saw this photo, I KNEW I had to paint her. Not only is she just adorable, but the reference photo is just the kind I like with the strong light/shadow pattern on her sweet face.
I love her hairdo, but was a little worried if I could pull it off. It wasn't as hard as I thought and I think it turned out very well.
This painting is sold.

Today is the last day for voting on portraits 51-60. I need more votes to break a tie, so email your choice to carolnelsonfineart@comcast.net. THANKS!

The patients: Mark ( the donor) went back home to San Jose, and is rapidly returning to normal. Morris (the recipient) is having trouble with all the anti-rejection drugs. They're hard on his stomach and his stomach hurts more than his incision. They adjusted his meds and now he's doing a little better. He's keeping some food down at least.

100 OIL PORTRAITS IN 100 DAYS - Michelle, 61/100, © Carol Nelson Fine Art

Day 61
This is Saundra Lane Galloway's daughter Michelle. I love the photo, but the shadows from her hair gave me fits. First I had them in there just like the photo, but they looked like a weird tatoo, so I smudged them a bit. I also added some more highlighted hair curls so you can't miss them. I'm still not sure if I succeeded with these shadows.
This painting is sold.

Don't forget to vote before Wednesday at 10pm.

100 OIL PORTRAITS IN 100 DAYS - Meigs, 60/100, © Carol Nelson Fine Art

Day 60

This is 2 1/2 year old Meigs. Too cute for words and I love that green ribbon. The "twos" are my favorite age. Their little personalities are starting to show and I love the talking, but mostly they're just SO SWEET at this age.
For purchase information, please see my website, or email me carolnelsonfineart@comcast.net.

Can you believe it's time to VOTE again? This last ten just flew by. Please review portraits 51 - 60 (Kay to Meigs) and email me with your vote. Voting will end at 10 pm MST.