In order to paint portraits of those visitors to Window Studio who want to be part of the project, but might not be able to afford a painting, or have the time to come back to pose, I have started just taking photographs while we are talking, which I then develop in oil sketches, completed in one or two sessions, max. The first of these was of Julien, a young man who had washed the windows for me once, and who told me that he was also an artist and a musician.
Another day he came back and spent some time drawing. He said he mostly drew cartooning, not much from observation, though his high school art teacher had encouraged him, and clearly he was capable. We looked at some of Leonardo DaVinci’s drawings and talked about how drawing could be a way of analyzing the world, that Leonardo was interested in figuring out human proportions, the structure of the human body, and so forth. Julien said that he was thinking of studying to be a medical technician, that his father in particular thought this would be a good idea, “Because people are always going to get sick, and need to be taken care of.”
I told him that my son was studying to be an EMT for the same reason, that he wanted to be able help people in an emergency, and that there would be jobs.
“So that would be a good thing,” Julien agreed brightly at first. Then he appeared to think about it more. “But you know, it could smell bad, all that blood and stuff, people be nasty…”
“If you weren’t a medical technician, what would you like to do?”
“Be a singer! I’m already a singer, R&B…” He sang a bit, but his voice was hoarse. He cleared his throat and apologized, “I’ve been sick.”