July 1, 2024 - Back in 2017, I attended a working art retreat with friends. I was working in games, so my day job work was all digital, and I was itching to get the traditional media out and paint. I didn’t feel a pressing desire to paint a fantasy scene or portfolio piece at the time. I’d been meaning to paint a portrait of my mother and had taken photos the last time I visited her with that purpose in mind, so I decided that would be my traditional piece for the week. I’m a big fan of mixing powerful, saturated colors to get neutrals. I don’t usually use a lot of earth tones, and prefer to use intense color and do a lot of my mixing on the brush rather than pre-mixing on the palette. Looking at…