Santa and an Early Christmas Present

Santa and an early Christmas present.

Tis the season to paint Santa!  The scheduled model for the Monday life group was Santa!

 How awesome is that?  Suzie Baker, a wonderful artist, who paints with the Monday group arranged for Santa.  She brought a beautiful screen, fabric, Christmas Tree, and chair for the jolly old man.  He was holding a mug as well.  Suzie's painting was wonderful and captured the whole scene.  My angle missed most of that so I just focused on the face.

I loved the little square glasses that he wore.  This was a three hour session.  I put the glasses in on the last 20 minutes he sat for us.  

This tassel was so fun it popped out right away.  I liked that it seemed as if you could reach out and grab it.

This was the painting at the end of our session with Santa.

In my studio at home I indicated that he had an arm, softened the top of his hat and brought out the fur a little bit more.   

Here is Santa with my painting of him.  I'm so glad he took time out of his busy season to come and sit for us.  Starlee was very excited when she got home from school to see that I had painted Santa.

Christmas came early for me this year when I attended the luncheon following our Monday group with all the other artists who participate.  Joe Collard and his sweet wife hosted.  They have a beautiful collection of artwork in their home and I was delighted and amazed to discover that they had an original Daniel Gerhartz!

My first Gerhartz!  I've be painting in my dreams with my buddy Dan (previous posts) and now I finally had the privilege of seeing one of his pieces in person.  LAAAAAAAA!

Of course I ran out to the car to get my camera so I could take pictures of it!  This is me basking in the glory!  Thank you Joe.  Joe has been to two workshops with Dan Gerhartz!  My turn.