Coming up at the Box Factory for the Arts in St. Joseph will be a chance to see some dueling portrait artists live and at work.
Bob Williams with the Box Factory tells us “Face Off: A Live Portrait Event” will be Friday, May 2 at the factory. They’ll have around 15 portrait artists all painting and sketching models. Williams got the idea while attending a Portrait Society of America event, where the public was allowed to watch several artists paint the same subjects at the same time.
“So I stole the idea and decided that we would do that here,” Williams said. “A couple of years ago, we decided to do that. I gathered the best portrait artists in the area that I knew. We got together and we hired some models and we opened it to the public.”
Since then, the event has become a fundraiser for the Box Factory. It’s interesting to see how the styles of different artists depict the models.
“That’s true, everybody has their own style and we even open it to several different media. About the only media we don’t allow is photography. So people couldn’t be working in charcoal or chalk or even sculpture. We haven’t had anybody do that yet.”
Right now, there are 16 artists from around Southwest Michigan signed up to take part.
It’ll be $5 to get into the event on May 2 at the Box Factory. Williams adds they’ll have live music, and everyone can also check out artwork by local students as the Middle and High School Community Art Exhibition is now up.