October 25, 2011

Kinstler at the Portrait Gallery - Part 2

Everett Raymond Kinstler did a couple really cool portraits of author Tom Wolf, one of which I saw, and shot, in the National Portrait Gallery in D.C.

                              "Tom Wolfe" by Everett Raymond Kinstler

There’s something about a subject on an all white background I have always liked. Can’t put my finger on why, perhaps it’s the way the subject just naturally pops off the canvas.


The greatest portrait artists of today can capture the “likeness”, as well as the real essence of their sitters, without over-working the paint. By that I mean placing a stroke and leaving it alone, then placing another stroke and leaving it alone, and so on, and so on, with a minimum of mixing, blending, pushing, pulling, scraping, or smoothing.


Kinstler does that beautifully because, (again) he is so good at nailing the values which enables him to confidently place stroke next to stroke next to stroke, almost sculpting the paint to the shape of the subject, until finished. Takes years most artists to become that confident and skilled.

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