...She follows in the style of the Old Masters, such as Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci, producing portraits that often appear to be a step back in time.
- Lisa Queen, North York Mirror, Toronto
...She possesses a unique talent of creating life on the canvas.
-Robin Brown, CBC Radio One, Toronto
...In a sense, she’s a psychologist, unveiling a person’s personality through her work. She enjoys finding what makes them tick, believing she can tell a lot about a person by looking into their eyes
- Lorianna De Giorgio, Town Crier, Toronto
Veronica Kvassetskaia-Tsyglan is an internationally renowned portrait artist, featured on Bravo?s Television?s popular Star Portraits series. Recent notable commissions include: Mr. Mike Maedy (CEO Canon Canada), Sonja Bata (Bata Shoe Museum), Countess Von Wedel, Bishop Michael of Canada, Steam Whistle Founders, Dmitri Hvorostovski , Measha Bruggergosman,Tom Diamond,Tanya Stepanova,Dr Draw and many more. Veronica was a First Place award Winner and Peoples? choice Award Winner at the 2002 International Portrait Festival Competition in Toronto. She is a member of the Arts and Letters Club (Toronto) and founder of the Portrait Society of Canada. Following in the footsteps of the Old Masters, Veronica values accurate drawing as an important starting point. For her, the beauty of representing the personality takes off from there, with its provision of important content information for painting. Veronica is an artist devoted to classical realism and dedicated her formative years to mastering drawing and painting in this genre. Over the years, she has seized every opportunity to perfect these skills, internationally: from Toronto and Frankfurt am Main, to Larnaca and Moscow. Veronica has taken classes at the Surikov Academy of Fine Art Arts and studied Greek Orthodox Iconography in the Agia Mina Monastery, Cyprus. Along the way, she also earned a BA in Art History from
Portrait Art is collaboration between the Model and Artist.
I am working in Old Masters Technique, using multi layers application that provides superior Museum quality of portraits, archival permanence and aesthetic excellence.
Ideally I will paint the portrait from life. This requires a significant commitment from Sitter (between 10- 15 hours for a charcoal portrait and 30-60 hours for oil portrait). But the reality of our busy life makes working from photograph also acceptable. Especially for kid’s portraits, they are unable to sit more then 10 min. In this case, I will use a photo as a reference, and will shorten the sitting process ( will need max 3-4 sitting to match the skin, eyes, face and hands features, etc. ) Sorry, I will not able to paint a portrait solely off of a photograph, due to the fact that portrait should reflect the personality and the essences of the Model. I have to meet the person. The only exception if the subject is passed away.
Portraits can take anywhere from a couple of month to upwards of year, depending on the medium, size, amount of details on the portrait.
Visit Artist’s Studio by appointment only