THE QUARANTINE PORTRAITS

The Quarantine portraits began as a way for me to maintain my life drawing skills through video chat with friends who were also stuck at home due to the quarantine. The distortion of seeing and hearing people through the veil of a camera lens and microphone has pushed these portraits to be looser than how I typically render my paintings. Yet the casual and intimate nature of painting someone in their own space as we share a one on one conversation, usually with wine, coffee, or beer on hand, has allowed me to capture a more emotional depiction of the people I paint.

These 8 inch x 8 inch watercolor portraits are created in a single session over the course of roughly an hour. Each person receives a complimentary digital image of their painting. Physical paintings are then available for purchase at $200 a piece (a lower rate than what I typically charge for commissioned work at this scale). Moving forward I will be donating $50 from each quarantine portrait sale to the Taking Care Fund, which I was a recipient for when I first lost my job back in April. This fund was a huge help in buying me time to get everything settled with applying for other assistance programs to get back on my feet financially while my family navigated our new reality in a pandemic world.

If you are interested in participating in a portrait session or would like to purchase one of the pieces, you can contact me DMing on instagram, or emailing me at erinelizabetho@gmail.com.