The saints of Saturday

Are you ready?

Artists' Group Sketch

acrylic on canvas
14 x 18 inches
Barbara Muir © 2019

It’s Saturday night, and we are in lockdown. This painting came up in my memories on Facebook from this date in 2019. How incredibly lucky we were then. I painted this sketch very quickly with my art group on a Tuesday night. That was back in the days when we could meet together and paint from a model. I usually stayed about one hour, and it blows me away that I could get this done in that time.

The model must have been especially inspiring. I’m not religious, but I do love the look of the haloes that are on many of the beautiful paintings in the Uffizi gallery in Florence, Italy. And I wanted to put a halo on every drawing when I got back to Canada was so inspired.

In this case when I got home from my art group I kept working on the portrait for a little while, and added the halo and the rays of divine light. Looking back it was divine painting from a live model with other artists. I loved every bit of it: the enforced silence while we painted, which often lead to giggles from we grownups, the wonderful conversations in the model's breaks, and what resulted – this is it.

We need to behave in as saintly a manner as possible in these hard times.  As much of a drag as it is for us going into another lockdown that’s even more stringent, we have to think of the people working in the hospitals trying to save the lives of people who have contracted the virus. They deserve our intense respect, and our total cooperation with the new protocols.

Have a taking care of yourself day.