"Painting Peter Trippi, Editor of Fine Art Connoisseur Magazine" CSOPA Event 2012

Artists paint model Peter Trippi at CSOPA Portrait Event July 2012

Jeanine Jackson founder of Connecticut Society of Portrait Artists and president put together an amazing event. The following artists: Peter Arguimbau, Betsy Ashton, Kelly Birkenruth, Carol Boyton, Grace DeVito, Susan Durkee, Nanette Fluhr, Sonia Hale, Jeanine Jackson, Claudia Post (myself), Ed Salazar, Mau Saluja, Joseph Sundwall, Cindy Wagner, and Joyce Zeller all were given just 3 hours to set up and paint an "Art Celebrity" Peter Trippi who is the Editor of Fine Art Connoisseur Magazine. Mr. Trippi who is an art connoisseur himself offered to model for 3 hours for a portrait session under hot lights (without air conditioning) yesterday in a civic center in Greenwich Ct. to experience what a model goes through as well as what each artist goes through to achieve a likeness and create a work of portrait art.

Jeanine Jackson worked tirelessly to put together this event for both the artists and the audience and once again she succeeded in producing fine results.

 These are the portrait artists almost all working in oils (except me in Pastels) and each one approaching the portrait with a different procedure and with different palettes of color. All were like composers, musicians or dancers all ready to perform and create art.

I brought with me two of my art students in my gifted atelier program, Lydia Tonkonow and Anna Schull and also my cousin Lynn who is very interested in the arts, who owns a great number of my early works. Lydia, Anna, and Lynn made me extremely proud as they showed so much interest in the artists working and they helped anyone with anything during the 3 hours of working. They even helped with all these photographs so that I could concentrate on my own work. Thank you ladies . 

Most artists used French easels. I brought a straight up and down easel for myself because I was going to work on a large sized compressed drawing board with a full sized sheet of canson paper on it.

This is one corner of the room where I was situated as close as I could be to our model to see his features. I am standing here like a tripod to steady myself and wore extremely comfortable clothing. I wore my painting shirt with a photo of my painting on the back with my website information! I was a walking advertisement. It was very warm and Peter was an amazing model. He wanted to learn what it would be like to be a model for a portrait and to learn about the artists who paint portraits. He has warm friendly personality and a sensitive look in his eyes. He talked freely to each of us with enthusiasm and interest. Peter Trippi plans to write about what it is to model and to paint a portrait, the process using this experience and CSOPA artists as examples. I would post the work of other artists but they are not finished at this point as they would normally do if they had more time to work. I would not want someone to post my work in a state I wasn't 100% pleased with. So you will just have to wait to view the work of my fellow artists.

This is me working on my pastel drawing. I worked on Steel Gray Canson paper and used only Nu Pastels sharpened with a razor to a point and then finally with a sand pad. I am a draftsman. I knew that I could not finish a full soft pastel painting in just 3 hours the way that I work so I decided to do an under drawing using a limited color palette. Using mostly values , I started my proportions with a very light cocoa brown, then graduated to a darker cooler brown and then finally to a darker green and a darker cordovan color with touches of black for his pupil and hair and lightened the lights with ivory, peach, ochre and reddish colors. I left much of the paper showing through .

Here is part of the group of artists on my side all working and concentrating.

Here we all are concentrating and taking advantage of every minute each of us has to look at our model and express all that we can in a limited amount of time. It is performing.

I believe that I draw or paint what I see and feel at that very moment in time I am painting that subject. And the subject sits there thinking about things every minute they are still and it shows in their face. That is why good music (preferably music that both the sitter and the artist enjoy) is good during the process of creating.

Here is a good photo of me, the model and my drawing.

Here is the entire group of the CSOPA artists after working on their portraits with Peter Tripp in the middle

We all had fun!

Peter, my portrait drawing and me

My completed Drawing photographed by Caryn Davis Photography from my town of Chester, CT.

Robert Henri in the Art Spirit said that when the thing that you have to say about your subject is said, then it is finished! Well should I proceed and complete this pastel portrait in full soft pastel? What do you think?

*Thank you Jeanine Jackson and Peter Trippi for a great painting experience yesterday.