Portraits of Canadian Olympic Athletes on Display at John B. Aird Gallery

My portrait of past Olympic Gold Medal winner Donovan Bailey will be on view at The John Aird Gallery in Toronto, Ontario from March 2-26, 2010, along with many other portraits of Canadian Olympic Athletes.

The gallery, located at 900 Bay Street, is open Monday to Friday from 10 am to 6 pm.

There will be an opening reception on Thursday, March 4 from 6pm to 8pm, so please come join us in celebrating the accomplishments of the athletes and how they have been portrayed.

Donovan Bailey Portrait - Detail

Here are the hands and the bling - the secret to painting jewelery is to not spell everything out. Human vision is selective - in other words we focus on one thing and everything else is peripheral. Leaving something to the imagination of the viewer makes the painting more interesting and truly realistic, something photography is unable to accomplish.

Donovan Bailey Portrait - Detail

Since this is such a large painting, I thought I would post a couple of details. I always want to get up close and put my nose next to paintings to see the brushwork and examine how the artist made the piece, so here is a close up of Mr. Bailey's head for anyone else who is interested in examining it more closely.

Portrait of Donovan Bailey, Olympic Gold Medalist

This painting was designed to bring attention to the head - the value of the background was lowered and the collar of his shirt on our left (the lightest value mass) brings attention to the face. The suit was the darkest value mass. His hands and cuffs, which can steal the show if you are not careful, are muted in comparison to the head/collar. The watch and ring are represented by an economical number of brushstrokes. I eliminated a lot of bottles of liquor that were sitting behind him, to simplify the design. I didn't paint every wrinkle in his suit, just the ones that showed action.

I had to use photographic references for this painting, since I was only given a grand total of 15 minutes with Mr. Bailey, but I used all the knowledge I have gained in working from life to create the piece. This is definitely not just a painted copy of a photograph.

I also researched Mr. Bailey and read everything I could find written about him, in order to get a handle on his personality and current interests. With this information and what I learned from my initial meeting with him (when he viewed my portfolio) I felt like I had a pretty good sense of the man.

Painting from Life - Portrait Society of Canada open studio session

This young man, Anton, is an opera singer.

He has quite a distinguished air, even at his young age and it was fun painting his portrait!

Julia - 14x18 oil on canvas

Oil Sketch - Oxana

Oil Sketch - Lorain

A few times a year, some of the members of the Portrait Society of Canada get together at The Arts and Letters Club to paint for a few hours at a time. This is a lovely model who posed for us when the fantastic painter Yuqi Wang was with us. With such a limited amount of time, it is difficult to get the painting to the level I would like, so sometimes I take a couple of photographs so I can tweak the likeness a bit later on.