Painting portraits with Sallie Harker

I am not used to painting portraits, I painted a few at art school forty years ago and have painted a couple since. So it was with quite a bit of trepidation that I sat down to paint portraits of the beautiful Shaheem. Sallie has a gift of capturing her sitters face in a few easy lines and has helped me and my last group to paint Shaheem’s portrait.

Yesterday was a wonderful day, in the afternoon Sallie and I painted Shaheem on her terrace together and she was able to give me guidance, which I really need and helped me to bring together the portrait below. We put a turbain on Shaheems head. He didn’t mind, which was generous of him.

I painted the portrait below after a sketch, Shaheem fidgets quite a bit but in a way it is a good thing as I had to concentrate even harder on my subject!

The portrait below is the very first one I painted of Shaheem with my group last week.