Patrick Kernan
(Portland, OR)

Seated Man in the Wilderness, Watercolor and conté pencil, 22" x 14"

The figure was painted from a live model over the course of three three-hour sessions. The background was completed later from my imagination. I like to let the background to emerge organically from my experience of observing the model.

After being an artist for more than fifty years, I find that my greatest joy comes from drawing or painting from a live model. I try to establish a direct connection between my hand and my eye, and get my nagging conscious brain out of the way. When I’m drawing a hand for instance my brain might say “that’s not that finger should look like”. But if I’m in the zone, it becomes a pleasant journey of my eye observing: “look at the way those fingers drape gently over the knee.” And then my hand just goes along for the ride. It becomes a pleasant journey, rather than a struggle to record that person as accurately as possible.