Work

My name is Linda de Jong, owner of www.portretwerk.amsterdam

Portraiture to me is as much an art as it is a craft, a profession in this town since Amsterdam's early days. Hence portretwerk, portrait works.

Living and working in Amsterdam enhances daily life with the lace-like beauty of the canals, whilst the local demeanour sobers reality back in focus, preventing affectation. My source-to- drawing process is infused with exactly this singular balance.

I enhance the subject's particular power – their tenderness, their grit, their playfulness. Not just through 'the windows to the soul' because the snout, where nose connects to mouth, is as much of a tell as the setting of the eyes.

A finer technique with a harder pencil, is applied in the face to achieve texture. Layer upon layer, rubbed out and reapplied, so after many hours of focused work, the brain ripples between seeing life and craft, skin and paper. The hallucinatory effect from work to visual cortex. The life in the portrait.

Around this precise area, I frame the face with hair, ears and clothes in rougher detail. This is where the dynamics are. Lines and light, without hiding the softer graphite. To go for airbrushed refinement in these areas is to defeat the purpose of the drawn portrait.

In order not to take pictures, one needs to take risks. The bold pressure strokes in the very last phase can make or break its entirety, they are meant to lift the portraiture to a level where we no longer see the source photo. Rather the lasting glance is felt.

To connect the subject to what he or she loves, or has loved, I can also embellish the background with refined or – should the subject demand it – course objects and places, elaborate or simple. Favourite flowers, scenery, clouds, fabrics, patterns, suggestions of cities. It frames the face with what is, or was, held dear. Perhaps by both of you.

Trust is key. Trust that I care about the subject, as much as I have confidence in my own skill. Experience guides me in making a good estimation of time, and indeed I take time.

When 'the feeling's right', I will embark on the drawing. Experience also requires a 50% downpayment. It is simply too depleting when life comes in between effort and delivery with a full loss, but moreover both parties need to be dedicated.

I guarantee a soulful result to enrich your living space for life.