On my recent birthday, which fell in Thanksgiving week, my requested activity was to paint portraits of my family members from life. I thought they could not sit for too long, so I attempted to complete each portrait in one hour. It was challenging! In the end we spent one and a quarter hours for most of them.
I painted the first one the day before my birthday, the next three on my birthday, and the last one three days later. My family found it more difficult to sit than they expected! I tried to encourage them to be relaxed, move as they needed and feel free to talk to the people around, but not to me! I was very grateful for their efforts.
They are all 11 x 14, oil, painted on a chromium oxide green toned canvas board.
marymayhewart 
I love them all! Well done Mary for getting your family members to sit for you! Live models are worth their weight in gold, aren’t they? Most of mine would rather eat their own arm than do this for ME! My youngest daughter is my best model, probably because she’s an aspiring artist herself, but even she will only sit for about 20 minutes or so, so, it’s charcoal Still life’s for me and anything longer is taken as a photograph and worked on at my leisure.
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