Tag Archives: traditional portraiture for alternative lifestyles

Work in Progress: a second sitting for Q and Companion.

q and p Jan 2 2018 by Suzanne ForbesFinally got a chance to have another sitting with our friend Quinn and her companion.

CU WIP Q and P by Suzanne Forbes Jan 02 2018Who I refer to as P. or PASR, which is a private joke between two women nearly of an age. We are both much alike and extremely different, she and I.

We’ve had uncannily similar traumas, and we each have our own ways of surviving them. She is completely an LA girl, and I am a New Yorker for life, but we are both robust survivors, absurdly resilient and determinedly creative.

I posed them in the library instead of the salon because the palette suits her Autumn coloring best; this sitting was extra special because her extraordinary child was with us. Ignoring us, like any reasonable teen would!

The day before we painted I said to her, you were one of the reasons I gave my guy a shot.

I figured any guy who had a woman friend like you had to be a guy worth checking out.

“Remember what I said when you got married?” she said, and we laughed. Knowing remarkable people over a lifetime is the first greatest treasure of life. Watching their remarkable children grow up is the second greatest.

Detail WIP Q and P by Suzanne Forbes Jan 02 2018

Last assless chaps of the year!

Dancer at DILF party Club Gretchen Dec 29 2017 by Suzanne ForbesMiss Natasha Enquist was performing at the DILF/Testosterone party at Club Gretchen last night.

I arrived at the club, which is a beautiful venue in old military stables, to find it full of great-looking classic leather daddies in Tom of FInland gear.

Last assless chaps of the year at Club Gretchen Dec 29 2017 by Suzanne ForbesI was a little nervous at first with so many NYC policemen uniforms- anyone who was arrested as often as I was by the NYPD would be!

It was dark and I kept it loose, using mostly broad-tip markers. The club manager came over and gave me a tea towel to put my markers on, so I wouldn’t mark up the white lucite bar – not that I would have!

Miss Natasha Enquist performing at Club Gretchen Dec 29 2017 by Suzanne ForbesMiss Natasha came onstage looking like if Rolls-Royce made hood ornaments for Star Destroyers.

Miss Natasha Enquist performing at Club Gretchen Dec 29 2017 by Suzanne ForbesAs a portraitist, it’s so important to draw the same person over and over. It’s critical to understanding what makes each face, body and library of gestures unique.

You can see I didn’t really get her face right in this picture, or I drew her head too large, but her body is completely right.

The specific is the key to the deep spiritual magic of touching the universal humanity in each of us. And practise and observation is the sacred work of portraitists. I have so enjoyed drawing Miss Natasha this year!

I would have liked to draw some of the DILFs in more detail, but they were all too busy dancing!

I’ll have to wait til the next Cigar Lounge!

MNE dancing at Club Gretchen Dec 29 2017 by Suzanne Forbes