Portrait in Oils - all about hair

I have just finished a portrait commission, which was a little bit unusual as it didn't include the sitters face... The model is a professional pianist, and she loved the depth in the image - so the focus is on her, but we see what she is looking at. Compositionally it  is very striking, with the figure taking up less than half the area of the painting, and the large strip of piano-black being challenged by the even larger strip of music-white, with out of focus multi-colours in the furthest background.

For me, it was good to get to play with hair, as well as dolloping large amounts of colour at the top, and resisting the temptation to make the shapes look like something recognisable. The whole thing looks very Painty - slightly thicker application of paint than I often use, so that it doesn't look so like a photograph.

Up and coming - Oils weekend, and a two day portrait workshop. 

email julie@juliedouglas.co.uk for info.