The January Collection

I started off the year by painting a collection of portraits.  All of these paintings are oil paint on 12"x12" canvas.  I painted all the backgrounds of these pieces first and then painted the portrait.

The first painting I finished is KAITLIN.  I love a lot about Kaitlin and her success encouraged me to continue painting the other nine paintings.

ALEX turned out really great with the cool blues.  This is one of those paintings that looks great from far away and really interesting up close.  I used a lot of shades of blue and was able to achieve great texture and depth of color.  I also really love the background too!

CATHERINE ended up as one of my favorites of the collection and I haven't been able to let her go.  The background on this painting came out as an experiment when I ran out of paint and I love how it worked out.  This piece is also really great because I can feel the mood it evokes and I feel sad for her.

GWENETH was another experiment and I love the dark shading on the side of her face.  It was interesting painting that because it started out really small and just grew, and grew until I felt like it was the perfect size.  I think it's my favorite part about this piece.

EVETTE is another cool girl.  Instead of the loose and flowy hair that I had been painting, I wanted to try a more structured approach.  It definitely makes Evette feel more formal!

EMILY is the first of the second half of the collection.  While I never intended there to be a clear difference between the first five and the last five, it just worked out that way.  I started to really love the backgrounds and I felt a resistance to painting over them, so I simply decided not to paint over the faces!

BARBARA is another painting with a very cool background.  Most of the backgrounds are monochromatic, so that makes this one a little different.  This one was also really fun to paint and kind of a challenge to mix the perfect grays.

TAYLOR is another favorite because I just love the colors so much!  This painting is edgy, bright, and splashy.  I love the structured hair and all the clean lines.  I will be a little sad the day this painting ships out!

I love ALLIE.  The pinks and purples in this painting look so good together.  I love the way her hair turned out with its highlights and lowlights.  I also really love the background on this one, too!

MORGAN is another favorite that I could not bring myself to list in the shop.  I love everything about this painting from the background, to the simplicity of her face outline, to the many shades of pink that make up her hair.  She is so lovely and I really need to find a place to hang her in my house!

Eight of these paintings are still for sale in my shop and you can access their listings directly by clicking on the link associated with their names.  You can also find more photos, including detail shots, on their listing pages too!