Three years ago, around this time of year, I painted this portrait of Vilidian. Acrylic on paper — one of the few I ever completed in this medium. Oddly, the portrait that first inspired her to start the Free Reference Mondays project was also an acrylic portrait. Maybe this medium holds some kind of beginning energy.
Someone once told her she had the “thousand yard stare” in the reference photo. She didn’t see it in herself, and neither did I, at first. But I realize now I was drawn to it — maybe because it mirrored something in me I hadn’t fully processed. Something unresolved. We never intended it, but trauma has a way of slipping into a face.
I painted it in the mornings, when I had the most energy. I remember carefully maintaining a stay-wet palette, so the skin tones could stay alive across days. It was a way of staying close to the work — and maybe to her too.
Looking back, I’m not sure if this was a portrait of her, or of what she stirred in me.
