Saturday, February 26, 2011

Lena Pedlikin Is Face #55 Today

"Lena Pedlikin: Face #55", oil, 12"h x 12"w, copyright Jill Banks 2011
Lena, age 14, is Adrianne Pedlikin's (Face #20) daughter ... and the two of them arrived today ready for me to paint Lena.

Adrianne kept quiet almost the whole ... pretty lengthy sitting ... something she managed because she' brought along a book to read (on her sixth Kindle). The idea was to keep the conversation between just Lena and me. So, primarily that's the way it was.

Lena's takes lots of honor classes, just joined the track team and has participated in the drama club as a freshman in high school. She was giving up her day to sleep in. High school start times are cruel. Not too far into the sitting, Lena checked her phone for the time and mentioned lunch time at school. Usually, my sitters get treated to coffee, tea or water and I starve them through the sitting. I've been on the 100 Faces in 100 Days diet for 55 days now. But I couldn't do that to Lena. Luckily I had something closely approximating her regular lunch on hand including Vitamin water, an apple and a peanut butter sandwich (on cinnamon-raisin bread though). Lena's mom lucked out, too, with some leftover shrimp and grits I cooked up for last night's dinner. Tomorrow's sitter probably won't fare as well. (Juggling anything ... like grocery shopping and cooking ... with painting a face a day is very, very tough.)

I was a little off today ... declared the painting done ... but it didn't pass the Adrianne and Lena test. She looked much older and something was amiss. So I pulled it over to the mirror along with Lena and that solved the puzzle. Poor Lena had to sit awhile longer as I moved up her mouth and chin to find Lena's face. So about a half hour longer and it was done. Met with approval. Phew.

In a few minutes, I'm heading off for dinner to celebrate my husband Randy's birthday at Cesco Trattoria in Bethesda. The restaurant's chef and owner, Francesco Ricchi, is the husband of Elaine Sheetz -- who modeled for my portrait class last Fall. Anyway, we're looking forward to some wonderful Italian food... yum.

"Jack's Tulips" New Painting Started
Last night, I did start a new painting ... of "Jack's Tulips" ... flowers that arrived via Jack Platt (Face #52). I put them in a beautiful ceramic vase brought back from Florence and they sit at my kitchen window. So I'm painting that at night and you see the reflections of the flowers in the pitch black window. Pretty. It also used to have two bananas in the scene. My daughter, Sarah, ate one of them. Oops. We'll see where that goes and hopefully I'll show you that soon.

100 Faces Project Page Updated on My Web Site Two Days Ago - Take a look
Read more about my 100 Faces in 100 Days Project on earlier blog posts ( and on my web site: www.JillBanks.com on my 100 Faces Project Page (link to it from my home page). 

Web: www.jillbanks.com
Blog: jillbanks.blogspot.com
100 Faces in 100 Days Project: www.jillbanks.com/jillbanks/100_Faces_in_100_Days_Project.html
Email: jillbanks1@aol.com
Phone: 703.403.7435 

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