Portraits 55 and 56/100

I have a few commission pieces that I have permission to share here, and because each includes a person, I’m adding them to my 100-portrait project (numbers 55 and 56!), which I’m woefully behind on. I’m especially tickled about these commissions, because Gayle asked me to paint them as a reward to herself for an important milestone in her career. I felt a lot of trepidation in the beginning that she might not consider them a reward when she saw them (ack!), but I also felt deeply honored. I decided to lean into “honored” and went to work. The first is 12x16”, which many artists consider small, but I consider big. The second is 8x10”, which surprised me with its challenges—the details got very tiny! Both pieces stretched me in different ways and became good learning experiences. And Gayle and I are both happy with how they turned out (whew!).