Painting with Matisse

Last Saturday in the portrait session I attend I felt honored to finally have the opportunity to paint from a model who has been modeling for artists and students for over 50 years. It was such a pleasure to paint  her.  Today I had the chance to develop the painting further, and I just touched up a few places this evening.  In my mind in this past week I kept thinking about the many years she has modeled, and I realized that I wanted it to appear as if she had modeled for Matisse in his wonderful inspired career. So I have added some references to his paintings and to photos of him, doing lots of research many days and evenings this past week. That made it easy for me to collage some elements onto the portrait while working last night, and to carry through on that process, embellishing with my acrylics to pull it all together. I feel like I was able to "pull off" my vision in the end. It takes endless hours of thought, research, and painting to pull it all together, a process which I thoroughly enjoy.