The time has come to set aside landscapes and dive back into portraiture!

And wouldn’t you know it?  I got so used to landscapes that I found this portrait to be a bit more of a challenge than I had anticipated.  This image represents a few days of work, at least!  Of course, I walked into it thinking “I’ll just keep it fresh, and loose, and, you know… painterly” and, well, THAT went out the window pretty quickly.  I think it’s a leftover reaction to my art school days when we never had enough time to finish anything, and even if we did, we were always discouraged from painting anything that looked too realistic (“skillful”, some might say).  With no teachers or peers around me, I can noodle to my heart’s content – and so I do!

Anyways, this is Yola, a model with a Russian modelling agency called Lumpen.  Their entire roster is comprised of Real People, which I think is very cool.