Cindy Grisdela by Jill Banks 2010

In the spirit of trying new things in 2011, yesterday I sat for my friend and fellow artist Jill Banks to paint my portrait. Jill is an amazingly talented, award winning painter who began a “100 Faces in 100 Days” project this week. You can read all about it on her blog.

It was a lot of fun–I didn’t have to sit perfectly still the whole time and we laughed and talked as she worked. I love spending time with other artists, even, or maybe especially, when they work in a different medium.  Jill is very talented, but she works hard to constantly improve her art, doing things like taking on this huge project to stretch and grow as an artist. I have tremendous respect for that and I wanted to help out.

Jill Banks at work

Plus, did I mention it was fun?

It was interesting to watch Jill work–you can barely see it in the picture on the right, but she had set up a full length mirror in back of her so I could watch as she laid down the paint and created the image. We talked about all sorts of things–art, artists, family, travel. I know how difficult it is to talk while I’m working and I was impressed that she was able to both put me at ease and concentrate on what she was doing at the easel. I don’t think I’ve sat down for someone to draw me since I was in art class in school, so I was a little nervous, but that went away very quickly! We were working in her studio, so there was lots of her art around to admire too.

You can see the beginnings of the portrait in the photo at right.

Jill says she’s going to try to exhibit the project after it’s finished and maybe write a book about it.

Painting in progress Jill Banks

If you would like to volunteer, go to Jill’s blog and sign up!

1 Comment

  1. Eleanor Samuels on January 6, 2011 at 4:10 pm

    Dee, Sounds like fun and she did a really good job. Not a photgraph buta pretty good likeness. Glad you had a good time doing this. MOM