CAMDEN—About six months ago, Ken Foster embarked on a creative and ambitious project. In one year, he planned to draw or paint 250 portraits of friends, colleagues and acquaintances he’s met over the years and title it The Portrait Project.

“I guess what started me on this is that I just wanted to get better at drawing people and experimenting with different colors and types of mediums,” he said. “I do a lot of watercolor, but I also work with spray paint, graffiti type, oils, acrylics, and gouache.”

Foster, who made a career path in architecture, has always been interested in art and decided to take it back up six years ago.  “I started to carry around my sketchbook with me wherever I went and painted, took classes and so on,” he said.

In just six months, his under-the-radar project has yielded more than 150 portraits, many of whom will be recognizable to Midcoast community. “One of the hardest things is to get the likeness of people,” he said. “We all have two eyes, a nose and a mouth, but I’ve been really working on turning it into something that resembles that individual.”

Here are a few portraits he’s done of people in the Midcoast. Using only their first names, he describes his rationale for, choosing each person.

Karen

This is Karen. She got in touch with me a few years ago to help her and a group of kids with the design of a sculpture for a contest that would benefit our local food pantry. The rules of the contest required the kids to collect 1,000 cans of food and then construct a sculpture. My job was to figure out how to build the sculpture using the cans and provide some drawings the kids could use to construct it.

Anyway, she does all sorts of cool volunteer stuff working with the Rotary and youth groups. Also, a couple of years ago she posted a photo a day of her morning walk - amazing sunrise shots of our picturesque little town.

Richard

This is Richard. I wouldn't be where I am today without him. Literally.

About 10 years ago, he walked into my little studio in downtown Camden and asked me if I knew of any architects that might want to move to a really nice space in a building he owned. At the time, I was looking to expand so I told him I would be interested in taking a look at it. I fell in love with the space and rented it on the spot. I have practiced architecture and art here since that day and don't have any plans to move.

Richard is also an entrepreneur and has been an innovator and pioneer in the digital news industry and is a very active member in our local community.

Katie & Jamie

This is Katie. Before I ever met Katie, I knew her twin sister, Jamie, from a painting class I was taking. So, when Katie showed up one Saturday morning for a group ride I assumed it was Jamie and said something, like, ‘Wow! I didn't know you were a bike rider.’ She kindly helped me sort it out the way she probably has done hundreds of times in her life, but my brain still doesn't easily sort this identical twin thing out and that is reflected in this portrait.

Judy

This is Judy. I painted this from a black and white photo taken when she younger (though I'm sure color film existed then). I imagine her outside of her dorm singing a Joni Mitchell or Joan Baez song about a social or environmental cause. She and her husband live simply in a beautiful, environmentally friendly house and grow their own food. She's still singing that tune in the way she lives her life.

Geoff

This is Geoff—one of my very best friends. I don't need to write much about him. For me, the portrait says it all.

Foster said the community has been very receptive to his portraits and has shared many of them around on social media, including Tumblr, Flickr, Facebook and his blog. None of them have been for sale and he’s unsure if he’ll be able to make his goal of 250 portraits in a year’s time, but, he plans on assembling a bunch of them for a show when it’s over.

To see more of his work visit The Portrait Project on Facebook. Penobscot Bay Pilot will follow up with this story once the project is finished and Foster has a show.

All photos courtesy Ken Foster

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com