Louder
also called
Pippi Takes a Ride
Edward J. Reed 2007
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This is a portrait of Sonia, a professional artists' model who frequently poses for my portrait and figure painting classes. She rides motorcycles. The clothing and gear she wears in my portrait are what she wears while riding. The painting's title "Louder" comes, in part, from Sonia's helmet, which I didn't include in the painting. It has a sticker on the back that reads, "LOUD PIPES SAVE LIVES". (I've also come to call the painting "Pippi Takes a Ride" because my wife and friends think the subject looks like Pippi Longstocking in a "whathever happened to" or "where is she now" motif.)
Sonia is also a remarkable professional photographer who exhibits under the name Fierce Sonia. Click here to visit her photography website at www.fiercesoniaa.deviantart.com.
My painting was on dislay in the March 2006 All Media Juried Show at The Art League Gallery, in Alexandria, Virginia. The bottom of my painting ends, of course, in the middle of the figure's shins. The same Art League exhibit displayed one of Sonia's own photographs, titled "Piggies", that shows her own feet. The gallery personnel, who know both of us, immediately realized that the feet in the photo were those of the woman in my painting, so they hung Piggies directly beneath Pippi Takes a Ride. Together, you got to see something of the whole person.
Piggies
Spooning
"Tenderness
Sunshine
Woods
"Avatar