Portrait painting workshop

Unfortunately this has been cancelled due to COVID :(

Yes! I will be hosting a portrait painting workshop in near future. The venue will be in Century City / Milnerton are in Cape Town (South Africa). The date is not yet decided.

The workshop will be perfect for people who would like to try their hand in portrait painting in oil. The workshop will also cover color theory and construction of face / facial features.

This will be a basic workshop and will ideally be suited for adults with some experience in painting with any medium (oil, acrylic, watercolor etc.)

Watch this place for more information!

3 Ways of starting a portrait painting

I have noticed I have 3 ways of starting the painting:

1. With a sketch 
2. With sketch + under painting
3. „Blind” painting

With a sketch-  I would start with a detailed sketch (making sure all sizing is correct and in place before I start) and put the paint directly on unpainted canvas. For me this works if its a small painting and I don't want to spend time waiting for under painting to dry. You can see the you tube video on the post Painting A little girl or Inspired by Game of Thrones. 

With a sketch + under painting - I have noticed that I like to do under painting for bigger portraits. This I usually do in acrylic as it dry much faster than oil under painting. I like to choose burnt umber or burnt orange for under painting as it gives warmth to the portrait. Sometimes green or paynes grey is good too to bring out the pink and orange top tones. Under painting also prevents the blank canvas from showing if the canvas is not fully covered. It also gives you an opportunity to establish the darks and lights early. Usually I use this this technique for commission work. I have posted an under painting on you tube for the portrait seen in previous post. 

,,Blind” painting - I just call it that way. Not sure if there is a proper term for it. It simply means that I paint directly on canvas - starting with vauge shapes and adjusting as I paint. I love the creative process of it, but it is much harder to get likelines of the person. I guess it takes practice and eventually one gets to know where to look and what features to enhance to achieve liveliness. If I work on a commission piece its very unlikely that I would use this technique as in many cases it would take longer to fix the mistakes than doing the detail sketch in the beginning.   Positive- it gives more room to play around and thus can make more interesting art piece.

„Blind” painting technique used on this portrait

Small OIL PORTRAIT SPECIAL

Small OIL PORTRAIT SPECIAL!!!
R499, oil paint on plain canvas 18x18cm

The other day I painted a small portrait for Latvian project ”Stastu Sega” and quite enjoyed it. I have always preferred big portraits and used to tell I don't paint less than A3 size portraits. Since then I have painted a few more small portraits and I think I like it.

So...

I have decided to offer to do a few small oil portrait paintings at R499 (about 25Euro) while I enjoy the process ;)

T&C
- Deposit R100 required
- Portrait would be on plain canvas fabric, no frame
- Price does not include delivery or shipping
- A good quality photo is a pre-requisite
- Portrait might take up to 2 weeks before finished, after deposit is paid
- I reserve rights to use the photos/video of the portrait online
- SPECIAL valid until I decide I no longer wish to paint small :D

To order contact me on:
- Messenger,
- email rgrizane@gmail.com
- Whatsapp +27611776609

Oil portrait of girls

I can finally reveal this portrait of my sisters girls. I painted it for our parents as a Xmas gift. Although it was posted from South Africa to Europe on 14th December, may parents received the painting only the beginning of March. I am unsure who to blame- the SA post office or holiday season for the delay, but clearly am happy that the painting reached the target unharmed:)

Here they are:

The process of painting them was somewhat challenging since it is hard to get two kids of that age to look into the camera and pose at the same time. So I had to do some adjustments to the final setup, putting the parts of the different pictures into one. I am quite happy with the result.

Here are some progress photos:

Colorful dog portraits in Cape Town

I was contacted by Michelle to do commission paintings of her beautiful dogs. Since I love painting any living being, of course I agreed:)

These are the pictures that were sent to me.

Initially we were thinking of ding the portraits in mild colors using mostly, white, grey, blue, brown. And this is what it looked like:

Although I loved this look and had tremendous fun painting these boys. Michelle sent me this picture and asked if I could make the portraits look like this, since she loves everything of this painting:

I will admit that it was very hard for me to actually change the look of the paintings- as I really loved it. The next challenge was to understand how to get the feel that comes out of this painting. I tried different brushes and palette knife- but it just did not work. And then it stroked me - I had to use my fingers!!! It was a extremely messy stile for me, but extremely fun too:)

And here is the result!

We are very pleased with the result:) Happy ending!

The portraits are acrylic on canvas, 56 x 71cm each.

Cheers, Ritma

Sweet couple portrait

Its been busy! I have not painted much, but here is one of my favorite works so far:)

This is a sweet, young couple that we are friends with. He ordered it as a first wedding anniversary gift for her:).

Art exhibition: Rialto Art Centre, 22 Mill street, Strand, South Africa

17.July to 1.August, 2014

SOLO EXHIBITION:

RITMA GRIZANE

Thank you to all who came in to view my art and support me on the opening night!:)


Special thanks go out to:

• My husband Neil Eybers- who put up with my late night painting and paintings taking over our house:)
• Georine and Ellen for opening Rialto and helping with the set up!
• The winery of Good Hope & Heather Whitman - for providing awesome wine!

Demo at La Diva Sallon, Friday 28 Feb

We had another fun demo session at La Diva hair salon in Strand (South Africa) last Friday 28th February, 2014.

Don't get mislead, Lana is a great hairdresser:)

Posing for a portrait demo session :P

Two work stations side by side

Tristan, oil portrait

Feel free to join the fun next Friday! :)

Baby girl in oil

The local crafts shop had a sale, so I bought some great oil paint and had to try it out!! I wanted to do some for fun and experience. So I checked the photos on my computer and came up with a very cute baby girl from an extended family. Here she is!:)

Baby girl.
Oil on canvas, 30x40cm

Hope You like it!:)

Horses in Oil

Hi Dear Friends!

Felt like playing around with the paint a bit, as had a difficulty finishing one of my commissions. Do You ever get that urge of side tracking??? You know- when You should be doing something, but just feel like doing something totally different??? Anyway, that was the feeling that got me painting horses again!:)))

Here is the result:

Have a fantastic day!!!

Going black & white again

This is my latest painting in black & white.

Acrylic on canvas, 18x24inch

Solo exibition / Personālizstāde - Riga, Latvia

This is the 3rd Solo - exhibition in Latvia (my home country).

Šī ir trešā manis gleznoto portretu  izstāde, kas apskatāma Rīgā, "Latvijas Gāze" Mācību centrā, Stirnu ielā 34 līdz 13.septembrim.

Beggining for the good energy!

Thank You to:

Taiga Treimane- for organizing the venue;
My sister- for logistic help;
My dad- for making all the beautiful frames;
My family- for accepting my crazy painting times:)

New works

Here are my latest paintings. After coming back to Cape Town I felt so inspired and painted a few painting in a few days! Or maybe I should give credit to my husbands bike trip through Africa (http://1man1bike1adventure.blogspot.com/), because I was so worried about him, that I could not sleep at night and got into painting? :D

An African dream

Baby - palette knife

One can call it a self-portrait

Solo Exhibition!!!

My first Solo Exhibition is running!!! I'm so gratefull to all the people that helped me to get this far. Special thanks to my family who supported me even though they live on the other side of the Globe!

My first exhibition is organized in Gaujiena where my parents live and it is also the place I call home!

In the mean time my husband travels Africa on his BMW motirbike. More info: www.1man1bike1adventure.blogspot.com

Preparing for an exibit

Dear friends and readers, 

I have finally gotten together enough courage to organize an exibition!:) Interesting fact is that with the decission to exibit the motivation to paint skyrocketed!!! I have been painting like crazy for the last two weeks and been quite impressed with the result, too:)

Is there hope? Oil on canvas, 14x18"

Prof J.Vitols Oil on canvas, 14x18"

Mommy & baby. Oil on canvas, 14x18"

Our minds are interesting mechanisms!!!:)
I must say thank You to the book I read: "Magic of thinking BIG"

Ritma