Our Friend John

This is the latest portrait study.  I couldn't sleep last night, so got back up and wandered down to the studio.
I decided to try a quick portrait sketch, and selected a photo of our friend John from New Hampshire.
John was always willing to help whenever we needed something moved (we could have never loaded the moving truck without him) and is a general all around really nice guy.  We miss him since moving out west. He's a good friend.
He's probably glad there isn't any more heavy stuff to move and carry!

I painted this on a sheet of canvas paper.  I haven't tried this support before, but actually, it painted pretty good!  It is textured like a canvas, and has some sort of coating specifically for oil paint, and was nicer to paint on than many store bought canvasses or panels I've used. I think I'll use it more, especially for studies like this. I have a 12x16 pad of it, and it's inexpensive.  I suppose if you got a good painting that you wanted to frame, you could mount this on a panel just the same as loose canvas, or dry mount it at the frame shop.
This was maybe an hour and a half painting time before I finally got sleepy and went back to bed. I decided to leave the white background, which meant I had to get the drawing right the first time.