Two weeks in: Open-air Portraits Project

It’s Monday. I have been doing the project Open-air Portraits for two weekends now.

What is it about? It’s about painting oil portraits of people out in the open, so far only in London Fields (I tried two other places, but it didn’t work out there at all!). Your first thought hearing this is of the street artist in the most common tourist streets, right? Well, I didn’t want to be that exactly. I want to make it different - not an attraction and a souvenir, but a small work of art.

What is the main difference then? I don’t like to deal with the pressure of putting a fixed price on the portraits. First I like to finish the portrait and then when people see it, they decide how much they want to donate for it. And it does varies a lot from person to person, depending on their situation and satisfaction.

My favourite part of the whole experience is seeing the reaction of people when the see their portrait for the first time. They are usually so happy! And it makes me happy. As well as imagining them having it for decades - while they change it will stay the same, capturing something special that happened so long ago.