Johanna
The three portraits were painted during Zoom sessions. I paint regularly with a group of artists who paint in open life sessions at the hosting artist's studio. When Covid first began shutting down activities, the group started meeting socially on Zoom, but then decided to paint from a model on Zoom. The hosting artist evolved the sessions from one iphone in a room with a remote model to multiple iphone cameras in his studio, allowing artists to pick a vantage point. This arrangement was a welcome option when we could not meet in person, or when Covid rates or illnesses made meeting in person risky or uncomfortable. We wore masks at times, but eventually did not. Covid changed the experience in multiple ways. We had fewer people in the studio, in part due to the need for cameras to have space. We could no longer play music as it did not work well for those joining remotely. We went from about 20 artists participating regularly in the studio to well over 50 on Zoom, some from the other side of the country to outside the country. There were advantages and disadvantages, but things really changed. The other three paintings are landscapes I painted plein air in 2020. This is something I would have been doing regardless, so Covid did not interfere, actually plein air painting gave me a way to continue life much as it had been before the pandemic. Other artists have commented that perhaps artists were less affected, as most of us tend to paint in solitude anyway.
