I ran across the below video today and found myself watching it all the way through. The video is of artist Rose Frantzen speaking at her show in the National Portrait Gallery last year. The show consisted of 180 12x12 portraits of the people in her hometown, Maquoketa (mah CO ket ah).
In the video she tells stories of the people, the materials and the processes that went into painting all of those portraits.
Rose studied at the American Academy of Art in Chicago, and while there, painted at the Palette & Chisel where she met and studied under Richard Schmid. Later, she also attended the Lyme Academy of Fine Arts, studying anatomy with the late Dean Keller.
Rose paints mainly figurative and allegorical paintings and has an ever evolving style -- painting thin and layered for one painting, and then loose and thick for these alla prima portraits.
She has a book about the portraits here. It has been on my book list for a while now, and after watching this video and seeing all the paintings, I think the book has moved up to the top of the list.
If you want to see more of her work, visit her site at Old City Hall Gallery
If you want to view some process videos of two portraits, visit her brothers site here