"PATIENCE" - DESTINY MADE HER MINE!
"Patience" below, is from another of my portrait classes for the Fall 2018 semester at the Vero Beach Museum of Art. I teach there three semesters per year, in addition to a 3-day oil & acrylics Portrait Workshop from a live model during each semester.
"Prudence" (I am guessing a Puritan Woman) was inspired and painted from a painting I purchased at the St. Sebastian Church's Saturday Flea Market a few years ago. It was a full-body, life-sized oil painting in really rough shape, that obviously was destined to be thrown in the trash heap had I not come along last minute just before closing. I purchased this lovely painting, frame and all, for $5 or $10. No signature or any indication on it to identify the artist. Since the clothing from below the collar on down was rendered poorly, I held my breath and cut it off. I then glued it onto a masonite board and framed it with a beautiful hand-carved ornate frame also purchased at the same time, also for $5. The frame was also in rough shape, and even had holes drilled in it on several areas. With some filler and good gilding, sanding and painting, the frame was perfect for this painting. It now sits in an easel on display on high kitchen shelving along with other items and paintings of interest I have collected over the years. And so I recreated this painting, inspired by that which I purchased, only made her a bit more pretty, as seen below. Below the painting is a sample of the step-by-step handout I give to my Museum students. Lots of work for me, but makes it so much easier for students to understand or jump ahead.
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| "Prudence" Acrylic on canvas by Judy Burgarella |
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| Class instruction hand-outs for my students |
"KATE" - FROM A LIVE MODEL
Below is an oil portrait I started in October 2018 from a live model, friend and student Kate Russum, and finished six months later. It was my first demo at a new location, Indian River Estates in Vero Beach, where I continue to teach. This painting haunted me after I started it, as I promised it to Kate as a thank-you gift for posing for me that first day. It was a very rough start, as all portraits of mine tend to be. But I finished it and believed it was one of my best yet. I actually feel that way about all my portraits, as the way of the life of an artist is that one gets better with each painting. And so it always gets better, if one takes the extra time to make it that way. However I am usually on the clock and on the run, trying to finish and document steps in a painting for a class, so those paintings are not usually my finest work.
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| "Kate" oil painting by Judy Burgarella |
MONET'S "WILLOW TREE AND LILY POND"
Below is a finished painting, a copy of a work by Claude Monet, one of the impressionists (1840-1926). I painted this in acrylics to get the feel of how he painted, in preparation for my demo/class at Indian River Estates. This was a 2-week demo, wrought with the usual mistakes which I gladly announce and exhibit to my students so that they can learn how an artist corrects his/her mistakes and moves on. Mistakes often result in the creation of a great new technique, a so-called "Happy Mistake," and it happened several times in this oil painting. demo. I hope to post this painting when it's finished. But below is my acrylic rendition of Monet's oil painting.
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| "Monet's Willow tree and Lily Pond" acrylic by Judy Burgarella |
I have many more I would love to post, but alas, they are on the self in my studio unfinished with the hundreds of other paintings needing my attention. I need about 40 more years and maybe I'll finish them all ... but then what?
I hope you enjoyed my postings!
Judy Burgarella
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