Oil portrait painting 30 in 30 – Day 5

Oil portrait painting 
30 in 30 – Day 5
Also linking to PPF

When I signed up for 30 in 30, I originally thought I wouldn’t paint any portraits this month because oil paintings take me forever to complete. Yet, here I am, painting a portrait. If you’re an artist you know how the muse works, and will understand what I’m about to write. Artists can have the best plan laid out, and good intentions to follow through with said plan, but 3 minutes later the muse steps in, and completely takes over. It’s as if your hands aren’t your own because they start doing things you never thought they would. It happened to me a couple nights ago. I didn’t even have any intentions of painting. I was actually on my way to bed, and bam..it hit me.

Now, I’ve been doing this long enough to know when the muse speaks my name, I have to surrender to its magical powers or else! There will be regret, and hell to pay later. If I hadn’t listened, and gone to bed like I planned, there’s no way I could have slept. I would have tossed, and turned, and eventually found myself back in my studio, working until the wee hours of the morning. Luckily I listened, and didn’t waste time because before I knew it (seemed like seconds later because I was completely under the spell of my muse, but it was more like hours), this pretty girl was staring back at me from the panel.

What you’re seeing here is only the first layer, she’s not finished yet. I’ll post more progress shots throughout the month as the painting develops.