Portrait artist of the year season 6 episode 11. After this we go on to season 7. Let's get started. And if you would consider please leave a thumbs up and subscribe and thank you for joining me. This is going to be a great time. So, Christa Ball Blackburn is the winner of season 6 which was 2020. And let's take a look at how she got here. First let me say this was not the first time that she entered the program which I did not realize until I did more of a deep dive and we're going to take a look at that. So, this is the first time she entered the program. This was herself Portrait. This amazes me that where she's been and where she currently is now. And I do remember this painting and this was I thought it had great potential but she only used that small part of the rectangle. It just was not very impactful and extremely tentative. I believe she said in an interview that the first time she participated in the program she tried to paint what the judges would want her to paint and and when she came back for this season she painted the way she wanted to paint. And I think that's a lesson for all of us. You know you have to please yourself first. Now in a close-up of the piece that did not move her forward in her prior appearance she's got the goods and we'll see that later. Now I also want to say what I said throughout my recaps as we've watched her come through Epis season six is that she is influenced by David Hockney. I've not seen any information from her saying that that's the case but I can't look at her work and not see it as being influenced both in terms of composition and in terms of color palette by him. Now we all are influenced by things that we see and don't necessarily know through osmosis how they how we use them later. So this is a self-portrait that she did for this season season six this season that she won. Big difference between the last time she entered and this time. So good for her she's been working hard. Now we're gonna take a look at the paintings that got her to this very nice place of being the winner. This was Elaine Page and this coming up is the portrait that she did of her which I just I really love this. You know I love this we've talked about it before so you can go back I'm not gonna review all of this I just want to sort of show the record of how how we got here. So this would have been done I believe for the semi-finals yeah I'm pretty sure semi-finals so that brought her to the group of three she's she then participated in in the finals. There's her self-portrait on the left and the painting that won her episode on the right. Very consistent a real balance of simplicity against some real creation of specific forms. Then Lem Sassay was the person they had to do the portrait of for the episode of I believe the semi-finals and so he's the celebrity model and her painting I can't it was one of her weaker efforts but I think the pressure is so intense at this point that that everybody needs has to be forgiven I mean this is this is tough stuff. So and I think all three struggled on that particular day just four hours and then after and then after that each of the participants is given a different individual commission to complete and she was given the commission of Willard Wigan and Willard Wigan is a artist sculptor who works in not just miniature but if you can imagine miniature and then go tinier we're talking microscopic he makes microscopic sculptures you can look them up it's fascinating and that is who her commission was of so on the left is the painting that she did in four hours for the finals and on the right is the painting that she did of that that was the commission she had two weeks to do the commission and I do think that there's a big difference between the two there's much more detail in the painting on the right and that's the most detailed that I've seen her create during this whole competition as well as quite frankly when I go to her website so I don't know I don't know how she stepped up her game to do that but she did now Nile Rogers is the celebrity for the commission this is the prize the $10,000 prize and so she's going to paint him and that's you know huge honor and it's going to be in a national gallery so show I mean if there was pressure before man a man is there pressure now now we see a picture of her we get to visit her in her studio now you can see some of the work that she's been doing for years and years before we knew anything about her you can see these sort of minimal figures and and design elements they seem very much like a graphic artist me so I suspect that she she has a pretty good use of technology and computer and I think I think that's going to aid her in this process we don't get to see that of course here are some sketches that she shared with him when she went to visit him in order to get some studies done for the final commission and you can see her drawings are very very fluid which shows you know when you're making lines like that which are lyrical and fluid it means that you've been drawing for a long period of time you're familiar with gesture and that's informative to me it's also interesting that her work doesn't necessarily reflect those kinds of sketches so I'm just going to hold on to that for a minute now above her head here to the right is a painting she did of her husband and she said that was in order to practice for this competition here is the competition and the unveiling and this is such an exciting moment after so many episodes I mean a whole season years worth of of waiting to see who the winner is and what their final work will be and so you know congratulations all around and for some reason you know like stars have a red carpet to walk down you know and these reveals every time I've seen a painting reveal that's always behind a red cloth something about a red cloth provides the drama I guess so so Nile Rogers is there and and and she's there and let's see the final painting wow now if that doesn't look like a David Hockney composition I don't know what what does and I'm not criticizing that at all it's it's just just a just a for me an observable fact really really beautiful job crystal ball did a just such a such a good job of this it's it's so enjoyable it's a really calm piece isn't it I think that has to do with we haven't talked much about this with paintings but it's really important or I really respond to paintings that have busy areas and then have quiet areas and I think she has that balance going on here almost a zen kind of thing happening the actual composition is a bit of a cross if you know what I mean those those strong horizontal which is the floor and then the vertical of the guitar and in the figure so here's another painting which shows some of the influences that I was talking about earlier but anyway getting back to busy and quiet we're going to see some more see that that emphasizes that that extreme balance that she has between those two elements I just think it's beautifully done and in some ways sometimes when I'm looking at a painting I think about literature and I think that her paintings are poems I think each one is spare in terms of carefully you know in portrait you're carefully used words and you use them sparingly but they're all meaningful and that's what she's doing in a visual way and and sometimes you know that expression less is more I'm going to use that here because these are so impactful and yet they're fairly simple well yeah I mean they are fairly simple but but taken looking at the body of work that she's done you can see very clearly that that these are choices that she's making choices based on good design and on clearly some things that are very important to her I get I almost get a sense of who she might be from looking at these paintings I just imagine that she's she's a gentle spirit I can't I sort of can't imagine I can't imagine somebody with a chaotic brain here but but I'll say that for me that's kind of what her paintings do for me they they calm my central nervous system down that's just oh gosh look at that just just so so carefully and beautifully done yeah each one of these paintings to me is a poem and sometimes I think painting at its best does that you don't need to do a lot of analysis you kind of know it when you see it it's just so beautifully executed and that's I'm sure that she figures that all out in her head before she ever picks up a brush I don't think for one second this is not somebody that sits down and and and and is fooling around it this is very very strategic so I'm so glad that I got a chance to enter her world and portrait artist the year allowed that to happen so thanks for joining me and now we go on to season seven remember to keep the whites of your paint white's of your paint no the white's your paper white your paints wet mask for value and mix for color and I will see you next time okay bye bye