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

Painting famous people

After painting Angelina Jolie and sketching Kate Middleton, I decided to try some more famous people. It did turn out to be quite a daunting task, especially the choice of the person.

Here are my two choices:

Dagmara Legante, she is a famouse socialite in Latvija as well as Director of Communications at Luxury Boats North. Why Dagmara? Because was lucky to meet her in person in Cape Town while she was visitiong the country and I discovered what a fantastic personality Dagmara has! The portait is owned by Dagmara and I really hope she likes it;)

Portrait of Dagmara Legante, oil on canvas by R Grizane

2. Justin Bieber, well, I guess we all know who Justin Bieber is:) Why Bieber? Because he had a concert in Cape Town in May and it left a big impression on the whole city- I was no different:) Bieber portrait is available for sale! You can buy this painting online or contact me directly to discuss other options.

Portrait of Justin Bieber, oil on canvas by R Grizane

Choosing the righ photo of the person was another challange! As I used photos that I could fing on the internet, they were not necessary the best quality, didn't give the right feeling or similar... So, photo choosing took me 30% of total time needed to do the painting. 

I hope You enjoy the results:)

Have a fantastic day!!!

Ritma

Oil paintings - portraits

I think I finally discovered why oil paint is so popular for portrait paintings! Its not that this was the first time I used oil paint for portraits, however it was the first time I enjoyed painting with oil.

Oil paint generaly is quite uncomfortable medium: requires turpentine for cleaning, linseed oil, zelkin etc for effects. Drying time is  long- which in my case is a shortcomming- I have no space to have paintings standing arround. Having two little boys arround does not help. Oil paint is also less forgiving with mistakes... 

Even with all of the shortcommings- I truly enjoyed painting the last portraits in my collection:

Free hand

In order to teach myself, I sometimes do free hand sketching:)

Here some of the sketches:

I must admit- I like to sketch beautiful women:)

Normaly, when I do portrait painting, I would do underdraving using some helping equipment of blocking or tracing paper... my ultimate goal is to be able to paint accurate portrait free hand.

R

Black & White

Two more paintings of the same family. This time here are two super-cute cousins:)

Both paintings are 18x24 inch (~45x60cm). Acrylic un canvas. The background I have left unpainted as the white of the canvas is different to white I painted- just liked the feel of it. Also didn't want to over-work the paintings. I hope You like them!:)

R

Sisters

I think This was more interesting for me than for the client:)

Here are two portraits that belong to the same family- they are sisters. And the common thing is not only that:

1. paintings are painted from a black and white reference pictures; 
2. painted with limited color palette;
3. Acrylic on canvas
4. Size A3

Although there might be so many common things in these paintings they actually ended up to be quite different portraits.

What do You think?

R

PS. I'm going to be busy with tours for about a month, so no paintings for a while:(

Paint like You can afford it!

My painting mentor always says I'm too stingy with the paint... So, one day (actually it was night about 11pm) I decided to try it out! I grabbed a piece of cardboard that I keep around for kids when they want to paint. Chose a picture on the computer for a reference - that was a little girl from Knysna (South Africa) Rastafarian community we visited a few weeks ago. 

The aim was to paint with lots of paint and keep it bright:) I am happy with the result. 

Picture is for sale. Size 23x30cm. Please contact me, if You would like to buy it.

R