A month ago today I stumbled across a new group on Flickr - Julia Kay's Portrait Party. The group's rules are simple, join the group and draw or paint portraits of other artists and invite other artists to draw you!
I’ve always wanted to paint portraits, but it’s not always easy to find the sitters in the ‘real world’. So this is a great pool of resource – not only photographic, but also for the inspiration of seeing everyone else's style and technique.
It’s such a motivation to have the encouragement and support of a thriving group of diverse artists like this!
In the last few weeks I’ve painted and drawn in totally new ways than I’m used to. And now that I’ve added my photos to the pool it’s a whole new joy to see the amazing and creative versions of me. Anne Watkins summed it up beautifully - waking up to find new portraits of herself was like finding love notes in a bottle – treasures flung across the unknown – from people she could not hear or touch, only see and imagine.
For a great description of the birth of the Portrait Party and it's exciting growth, see Julia's article on the Women's Voices for Change site.
Here are just a few of some of my favourite portraits, some of the portraits I've done, and some of the fab portraits of me!
1. Andrew Mirzoian by Mariah O'Neill
2. Gila Rayberg by Jennifer Lawson
3. Margaux B by R K Schlueter
4. Peter Vanayk by me
5. NC Mallory by me
6. Me by NC Mallory
7. Wally Torta by me
8. NC Mallory by Wally Torta
9. Me by Sean Cronin
10. Sean Cronin by Timothy Schorre
To see more of the portraits or join the party go here
To check out Julia's great photostream go here
It was so difficult to choose just a few favourites that I'll be posting more soon!
