Tom, what a soft velvety feeling, and there is elegance and balance throughout the painting.
Truely beautiful
Ilaria

Thanks, everyone...

Julie--I'm finally getting the importance of neutrals in skin.

Enzie--thanks. I've figured out that, like a lot of things, it's better to paint everything around the teeth and define them by outside contours, rather than painting them as little Chicklets lined up.

Ilaria--it's a little confined horizontally, but it's planned with a painting of his twin, facing the other way, so they can either be hung together or not.

Mischa--I prefer to paint as directly as I can. I paint a first layer in color, and establish values then, and continue to refine in layers in color. I glaze very sparingly to adjust color at the end, if at all. I'm impatient with glazes and don't wait sufficiently for them to set, so I muddle and dirty them up--I don't like to glaze at all if I can help it.

Beautiful portrait, Tom.
I like the light, and the nice athmosphere created by it. Your backgroung is really great.
I agree for the feet : very elegant pose and soft skin tones.
Congratulations!

Tom, don't you find it really really hard to paint two works that have to hang together as a dyptich ? To the difficulties of just painting you have to add the task of matching colours and size. What a task!
How are you going about ? Did you carry on on both paintings at the same time or is the second one to be started yet? I also wanted to ask you if you started on a toned ground here or on white.
Thanks
Ilaria

Marina, thanks. I appreciate this from one who's paintings define elegance.

Ilaria--Not too difficult if it's planned from the beginning. I posed both boys with this goal in mind, and then worked the compositions in roughs simultaneously. I am not painting them concurrently--another job has intervened--but I'll keep both in the studio to paint with similar colors and values. (They are not planned for the same frame, just to be hung on the same wall if the client wants. Similar but different, with the same head size.) The canvas ground is white, but I tone the drawing with washes overall when I start painting, as the white throws off my value eye.

Wow!
 

Oh Tom,

This is truly spectacular! You shared the reference image with me a while back, and your synthesis or edited interpretation is perfection. I love everything you did with this. I know you had to edit the geometry of the bench and remove a substantial tree trunk that was in conflict with Will's head. I love the elegantly designed composition, including those well posed feet . The likeness right down to the freckles is perfect. Did you age the color of the wood on the bench? I like the gray wood as a choice. This painting certainly supercedes the reference image! I imagine your client is enormously pleased.

I can't wait to see the companion portrait of his brother, you have done so well with this!

Garth

Garth, thanks!

Again, I appreciate the second eye you provided.

I didn't age the wood beyond what it was. It was a combination of warm grays overall that went a little silvery on the top surfaces that caught more weather and sun.

I moved his right hand from the near to the back leg, which became a bear to redraw. I'll have to tweak it some more--it still isn't right--but I'll do that when I'm working on the companion piece.

Thanks so much--TE

Tom,

What a lovely gentle painting of a young boy. It seem to me that you took extra delight in the background which is handled with such delicacy and radiates such a soft summer light. It makes me feel the same way I did as a girl, dipping my feet into the edge of a wooded river in summer.


Mischa,

You are. Tom is a well respected award winning painter who gives workshops all over the country. I think any critiques you have should be PM'd to the artist. It says very strongly on the section that no critiques are allowed.

Sharon--

Thanks so much for your affirmation of my work!

--T

Tom,

You need no affirmation from me, but the wonderful thing about this painting is it brought back one of my fondest memories of my youth.