Portrait master returns to teach painting (intelligencer.ca - Oil Portrait Paiting)

The artist taught a small group of local painters during a day-long class at Elizabeth Dinkel’s Front Street studio.

Oil Portrait Painting

Babailov arrived in Canada in 1990 as Communism fell and waves of social and economic changes swept across his native Russia and eastern Europe. His apartment was one floor above the studio where Sunday’s lessons were taught.

Soon after emigrating here Babailov started classes at Loyalist College.

Portrait Oil Painting

“I would take a course in English as a second language and then, the same day, I would teach a course in painting and drawing,” he recalled.

Babailov, who now lives in Brentwood, Tenn., created his first portrait at age four and now specializes in them. He works in oil paints, pastels and charcoal.

“I love people,” he said. “To me it’s a challenge to find a unique and artistic picture in everyone. It’s that uniqueness that makes each and every one of us beautiful.”

He’s painted world leaders and celebrities but doesn’t give much stock to a person’s influence.

“It doesn’t matter what level of society they come from,” Babailov said. “To me it’s a human.

“If I start thinking, ‘It’s a pope,’ my hand will start shaking. I don’t want to paint a picture with shaky hands!” he said, laughing.

Students gushed about their teacher’s technique.

“It’s like magic,” said Dinkel, Babailov’s frequent student and the organizer of Sunday’s course. “It looks effortless when he does it — and when we try to do it it’s not effortless at all.

“We learned that we have a lot to learn,” she said.

“I have a dream of going and taking a seminar somewhere, but this is a world-class artist coming to us,” said Jane Sanders of Huyck’s Point in Prince Edward County.

She said the class underscored the importance of balancing light and dark on the canvas.

“It’s all about tone,” said Sanders. “The only way you truly learn that is practice, practice, practice.”