Another Throwback Tuesday

Colored Pencil on Paper

This piece goes back to the '90s. I met the woman who modeled for this picture at (conveniently enough) an art supply store. It's a colored pencil piece on a full-sized sheet of archival printing paper, and one of the reasons I don't work in colored pencil anymore. That's a LOT of paper to cover using only tiny pencil points! I made a couple other paintings of her, but with pastel instead of colored pencil. Maybe I'll show those works in future "throwback" posts.

This portrait won a merit award for me in 1998 at the 74th Utah Spring Salon at the Springville Museum of Art, and was reproduced in the show catalog. I've neglected entering these kind of shows for a while now, in favor of painting for professional galleries. What museums like and what galleries want seem to be two different things. I've been considering getting active in museum shows again, while continuing to paint plein air landscapes for galleries, which I very much enjoy doing. The demands, opportunities and challenges that come with shows like The Spring Salon carry a different kind of excitement.

Photograph by Hawkinson Photography.