Tag Archives: Portraits

There’s something different about painting or doing any creative work with people. It’s not about giving or receiving advice, there’s just some sort of invisible interplay that happens when two or more people sit down together to work on their art.

Yesterday I went to see the “Van Gogh Alive” exhibit in Tophane, Istanbul with my friend Mike and his son Ozi. More about that exhibit in another post, but suffice it to say Mike and I were very excited by what we saw and couldn’t wait to rush back to his studio and start painting. Ozi sat down to read his book and Mike and I got out the acrylics and got down to work–painting Ozi.

Mike, who is known for his fast and furious painting technique, actually starts out with a line drawing.

I immediately start slapping color on the paper. Awhile later (who knows how long, time disappears when you are painting!) we had each finished a painting.

 Our first paintings: Mike’s at left, mine at right

At this point Ozi was tired of reading and being stared at so he left the room, but we kept painting, using our first paintings as models now. Mike found a big colorful canvas he didn’t like and started painting over a previous painting, and I decided to try simplifying the shapes and colors. We ended up with these:

Our second paintings: Mike’s at left, mine at right

All in all, a successful day of viewing and making art. Our work may not look like Van Gogh’s (but then again, that’s not the point, that’s been done!), or like each other’s (we may or may not be influenced by each other, doing a little more of this or less of that), or even like Ozi–but none of that really matters. Seeing and making art is sometimes just more interesting and fun when you do it with others.