I’ve written before about Karin Jurick, both about her own wonderful paintings and her ongoing group painting blog, Different Strokes From Different Folks in which numerous artists paint their own interpretation of the same photographic resource in periodic challenges.
I also wrote last year about the Different Strokes From Different Folks Portrait Swap, in which participating artists supplied photographs of themselves and were in turn supplied with the photograph of another participating artist; each artist painting the portrait of another.
Jurick has decided to repeat the challenge again this year, (in what may become a tradition), with a Different Strokes From Different Folks Year End Portrait Swap.
This time there are 180 participating artists. The photographs have all been assigned, but the artists still have until December 31st to submit their finished portrait.
A good number of them are already posted on the Different Strokes blog, however, and it’s a fascinating mix of painting styles and approaches. The images usually have a somewhat larger version linked to them, as well as a link on the artist’s name to their own site of blog.
The participants include Adebanji Alade, who I recently profiled and Karen Hollingsworth, who I profiled in 2006.
Jurick has also posted a pair of videos on YouTube, here and here, in which some of the portrait paintings are shown with the source photograph.
(Images above, artist credit, row 1: Sharon Margolies, Paula Cravens, John Wolff, row 2: Akiko Watanabe, Dana Copper, Steve Prenner, row 3: Karin Jurick, Karen Hollingsworth, Amanda Carder)