Tuesday 25 December 2012

Merry Christmas!!!

Dear Nelson Mandela and all of us- may we have a blessed Christmas and fulfilling time with our families! 



Thursday 13 December 2012

Christmas Commissions

Christmas is time for giving and spending time with the family- at least it is for me! I have my mom and sister coming from Overseas (Latvia) to visit us. It will be be my moms first visit in South Africa and there is so much to see here!!!

Portrait paintings are very unique gifts for Xmas and they are great for business (if I can call painting portraits a business), but my family is more important for me. So please excuse me for reserving the Christmas time for family rather than painting ;)

I wish all of You the best Xmas ever and great New Year ahead!


Ritma and family.

Wednesday 12 December 2012

Painting landscape

It's been a while since the last post and I have been busy, but not painting wise... However I have done a few portraits with landscape at the background. Although landscape does not require a precise representation (as oppose to portrait, where a minimal change can determine if the portrait will actually look like the person portrayed) it still takes a lot of effort and time to paint. The tricky part is to make landscape look 3-dimensional, where the lightest color and darkest color meet at the horizon.




All of these paintings are done with acrylic paint on canvas fabric.  In various sizes. 

Thursday 25 October 2012

Art classes

On Wednesday I traveled 70km that took me more then an hour (one way!) to an art class to draw a weird electricity plug, that I didn't finish... Are these art classes wort it?

Well, the class is given by a brilliant teacher Leonie Brown and I really hope that she can help me to improve my painting skills. I must say that I did pick up a few pieces of advice just by watching other students as well as listening what Leonie tells them:) So, yes, its worth it!

PS. If anyone else from Somerset West would like to join the art class on Wednesday mornings in Durbanville, please contact me (www.portraitartist.co.za), we can share the petrol cost (it's a pity one can not share travel time:) ).

Sunday 14 October 2012

Paintings in Country Markets/ Events

Yesterday, 13.October, 2012, we had a Training jumping show at Journey's End stables (www.horsebackriding.co.za) where I am a regular visitor...

As I have painted some of the horses there, I decided to advertise my work on the event. So, I teamed up with my friend Alaine (http://laineysbeadeddesigns.wozaonline.co.za) and we had a display table at the show.  The show itself was a great success as it had a great turnover and fantastic atmosphere. My paintings however didn't enjoy that much attention or interest. Ok, I didn't expect people to buy the paintings as they all were costume made for someone, but were some what disappointed about lack of interest.


Where did I go wrong? Ok, I guess, people didn't come to the show to see paintings, they came to see horses and jumps. Maybe I should keep to online advertising and keep www.portraitartist.co.za active? Maybe I should try a genuine craft market where people come to see and possibly buy art??? Ok, that sounds like a way forward:)

Wednesday 26 September 2012

Painting horses


Horses are so amazing- huge, but gentle!!! They have so much power, but they would trust us to direct them. Well, most of the time:).

Ever since I remember myself, I have been bewitched by horses. I should thank the horses for getting me into sketching.  There are quite a few horse sketches that I still have at my parents place. Unfortunately I cant not put pictures of those sketches here, because my parents live in Latvia (Europe), but I'm in South Africa, but maybe I will do just that one day:)

Logically, when I started painting in April, 2010, I soon moved to painting horses. It was Bles in acrylic. the painting is owned by my friend Suz and Bleses owner. From there on, I have painted a few horses and each painting came out better then the previous:)



Condos Goliath (Mr Spots) is the last painting I painted - it is still drying on top of my fridge. This painting is for Goliath owner and my friend Alaine, who kindly allows me to ride this stunning horse!:) It came out so nice, that I might keep away from painting horses for a while, as I'm afraid I would not be able to do a painting better than this... hmmm, lets see how long is that fear going to keep me away from painting another horse:D.

Thank You for reading and have a great day everyone!


Friday 21 September 2012

A blogger

Well, this is me trying out blogging:) As this is totally new to me, it might seem a bit weird or clumsy, but I will surely learn and get better:) I hope you will at least enjoy reading it.

I hope this blog will be the place to share my experiences about paintings and while painting.
Please also visit www.portraitartist.co.za

Ritma Grizane

14 in 1!



So today I finished this family portrait. I have never painted a portrait with more than two subjects in the painting, and now- 14!!! Quite a jump! I must say it took loads of motivation, concentration and coffee:)

This is an acrylic painting of size 55 x 75cm on stretched canvas. It possibly would be a better painting if I used an oil paint, but I could not have that luxury as it had to be done in 5 days and oil simply would not dry in 5 days....

As I work from the photo and the reference picture was done before the digital age- the photo was scanned and emailed to me. It also was a black and white photograph. Originally I was going to paint a black and white painting, but I felt that some color on faces would make better impression and stand out.

After all- I hope that the client will be happy about the result:)