Posing

Here's how it all began.
I work at a university. An email went out to all faculty and staff asking for volunteers to sit for portrait painting for an introductory painting class. It was really quite a well-written email.  It enticed you with a chance to sit for 20 minutes, while at the same time experiencing a side of the university you might not know much about it. Plus, it mentioned that we could keep one of the portraits as payment for our time.

I got it first thing in the morning. I thought about it for a couple of hours before it dawned on me that this is one of those things that is awesome about my job. Most people don't get to have their portraits painted for free! So I emailed back and requested a slot.  After a slight emotional roller-coaster ride of being told the slots were full, then being told that I could come at a different time and then being told they were full again before being told I could actually come, I was signed up.

On Wednesday, the day of the portrait, I was pretty giddy. I tried on three different outfits when I was getting ready.  Then I took two different outfits to work to ask opinions of my co-workers.  I finally settled on one.

Now we come to the portrait sitting.
There were five of us getting our portraits painted at the same time.  We sat in the middle of a circle and the class of painters were ringed around us with their easels, paints and brushes.  They got  to choose who they wanted to paint.  They only had 20 minutes to capture the essence of their subjects.

We were told to pick a pose that we could hold for 20 minutes.  I immediately started grinning. The push-my-cheeks-upward kind of full face grin.  My painter said, "You may not want to smile. It's hard to hold for 20 minutes."  To which I responded, "Okay, I'll go with a slight, sly smile then." She laughed and said she'd try to capture that.

They advised us to pick a spot on the wall opposite that we could look at the entire time.  That way we'd hold our heads the same way the whole time.  This was my spot:

That's right, I got to stare through a transparent heart into a blue sky and green trees.  It was great. And bright.  I got to sit there for twenty minutes, not moving a muscle and looking through that transparent heart thinking deep thoughts about love and the nature of having a transparent heart.  I know I had a bunch of personal revelations along those lines, but unfortunately I have already forgotten them all. Side note: the word next to the transparent heart says "HATE," but fortunately I could not read that from my seat.  I actually thought it said "MAKE," ask in "Make Love." But mostly, I just didn't think much about it because it was a small millimeter (as opposed to large millimeter) off of my chosen mark.

The 20 minutes flew by. I couldn't see what anyone was doing, except for my painter, who i could see out of the corner of my eye.  Despite her advice not to smile, it was hard not to smile the whole time because I was having such a good time staring into my blue sky transparent heart and watching her peek around her easel at me.

The teacher walked around continuously giving pointers to the painters.  She didn't have to give my painter any advice almost the entire time, which, weirdly, made me proud. Obviously, that meant I had the best painter.  Toward the end she recommended that my painter buy new brushes, which obviously worried me. (Internal monologue was something like this "My painter is using old brushes? So much so that the teacher is concerned about it?  What does that mean for my painting? Will it be ruined by old brushes??")

At the end we got to get up and walk around and look at all of the portraits. They are going to have an exhibit of all of the portraits (factoring in all the time slots, they had more than 30 different subjects) in the library in April.  After the exhibit, we get to keep our portrait.  I'm going to frame mine.

The result.
It's different than I thought it would be.  Turns out I needn't have worried about what to wear.  It's more abstract than I was maybe expecting, but it's super cool.  She captured my cheeks really well. I also like my eyes and red lips (even though my lips are never red).  The only thing I'm slightly underwhelmed with is my hair.  Where are my bouncy curls?

Continue after the break to see my digital picture of the finished portrait.




So without further ado, here is my portrait (still taped to the easel). If you'd like to see it larger, click on the picture. What do you think?

My friend Nicole also got her portrait painted at the same time. She looks super intense and serious, although those are not characteristics I would normally use to describe Nicole. Here's hers.

In the end.

I'm so glad I got included into the super tight race for portrait sitting slots.  I loved the experience and loved my painter's interpretation of me. If you ever get asked to sit for a free portrait painting, do it!