Spiro II, 16"x16", Oil on linen

As Spiro sat to pose for the group, I asked him if he could pose like this:
but we thought he would have a hard time holding the pose, so we settled with a more conventional pose.

Unlike the last painting of him, this painting shows the less serious and more lively appearance of the Spiro that we know.

Tom II, 16"x12" oil on linen

Tom arrived in the classroom about 20 minutes late, with a half-eaten pizza still in his mouth. I was concerned that the shortened session would make it difficult for the students to finish the painting. Becoming frustrated by waiting for him, one student packed up her painting set and went home just before Tom took the pose.

We all agreed that any club member who is in his class should be excused for turning in their mid-term project late.


For this painting, I used a mixture of terra rosa and viridian to pre-tone the Belgian linen that I prepared with rabbit skin glue and three coats of lead-white ground.


My intention was to finish the painting with a vignette around his neck with a thin wash of color that would faintly suggest the extension of neck and shoulder. At the end of the session, Tom lingered about and kept asking me if I would paint his neck. I obliged. He sat back in the chair for two more minutes after the session so that I could finish blocking in his neck.


While the last painting of him had a bit of a serious look in the face, he looks pensive, even melancholy, in this painting. Also, he turned out to be looking younger and more trim, with a couple of pounds missing from his face. He didn't complain.