Anne of Florence, Italy

May I share with you how I painted a portrait of Anne, our Guide to Tuscany, Italy? Anne is a tall and elegant woman from Florence with classic Italian features and olive skin tones. She has lovely dark hair and eyes with a long, sculpted face similar to Sarah Jessica Parker. Her bone structure is quite evident. She was fashionably dressed in a black wool beret, flowing cream crocheted scarf, olive quilted down filled coat, black leggings with exquisite to-die-for black leather riding boots with fold-over rim at the knee. In addition to all the information about the enchanting region of Tuscany, I focused on memorizing Anne’s appearance. Above is the pencil sketch I did mostly from memory.

To Paint Anne I first sketched my drawing onto an Ocher toned canvas board using watercolor pencil for easy correction. I pre-mixed the portrait color palette which I learned from Daniel E. Greene of North Salem, New York. To learn about this you may purchase Daniel Greene’s oil portrait instruction video from http://DanielGreeneArtist.com. Next, I began painting the darkest values progressively moving to middle tones and finally light values and highlights. I decided to try a neutral grey middle value background, because I had such a strong pattern of light and dark in the figure. I am so glad I made that choice as I love the timeless feeling it gave the painting. Another new experiment for me was to paint the crocheted scarf with a palette knife, another happy result. I’m quite pleased with this portrait and hope that you enjoy it as well. As always I love to receive your comments.