Fiona – Portrait Oil painting on a recycled canvas (sustainability)

Fiona was my first attempt to capture a person with my oil brushes. In this portrait, traditional craftsmanship meets contemporary sustainability. This painting began as a creative challenge to reuse an unsigned canvas purchased years earlier in an antiques shop. The canvas originally depicted a very dark cellar filled with barrels, now partially veiled beneath the portrait’s surface.

Fiona was painted using the glazing techniques of the Old Masters—layering transparent oil paints to achieve depth, luminosity, and realism. Fiona posed over the course of eight days for a group of six painters, allowing for a slow, deliberate process reminiscent of classical atelier practice. The result is a richly image where the subtle presence of the underlying composition invites viewers to consider the layered history of subject, perspective and medium.