Julia Hanna and I have been friends and on-line colleagues for many years now. She is my co-host on our Friday night livestream. I have been a guest on her channels on YouTube and she has appeared on mine. I have written guest posts on her websites, and she has contributed articles to mine.

Because of this, it should be no surprise that when I started painting again in earnest, Julia became one of my regular subjects.  You can see my art style develop in the different portraits I have painted of Julia.

The first time I painted Julia, it was from a photo of her as small child. At the time I was experimenting with the use of gloss medium, so that particular painting was reasonably well blended.

In the painting, Julia is holding a porcelain doll that she received as a present. She is smiling and looks very happy. I was pleased with how that painting came out.

However, in later paintings I was not able to use gloss medium, so other methods had to be devised. I resorted to less blending and more impressionistic use of color.

I also did a painting of Julia and her sisters at a more advanced age. For this painting I did not use gloss medium. The shadows and highlights are very strong in this group portrait.

This was during a period when I was doing many family portraits. Julia and her sisters was not the only group of siblings that I painted at that time. But this portrait turned out rather well.

I also did an ink drawing of Julia about two years ago.

My most recent painting of Julia is as an adult. I completed the painting in less than an hour during a livestream. It is an exampke of alla prima painting.

Painting the same subject in different styles and at different periods in life is a good way to learn to improve on past efforts.