Carlos, thank-you very much. Yes, this is a group show at the Blackheath.

Thank-you, too, Tom. Yes I do a lot of scraping off, but I also use a lot of light touches too. The scrapings-off push the paint that is left on the canvas into the gaps between the canvas threads and give an actual physical, sculptural depth to the image. The light scumbled marks bring the paint forward physically and sculpturally, and together this give a great feeling of tactile modelling. So the front of the leg, or the most prominent parts of the cheeks, for example, would be scumbled and brought forward and the underside of the chin, again, for example, might be left in its scraped-off stage, or pushed hard back into the canvas with the paint brush. My paint marks are a combination of the descriptive (the outlines, the colour, the drawing) and the sculptural.

I apologize for missing this post- it's just lovely.

Kudos to you,

Thank-you very much, Chris. I apologize for missing your reply!

The angelic auro of your son comes across really nicely. Now that you have explained your texchnique it sounds very interesting and I would love to see your work in person.

Thanks very much Enzie.

Thomasin, I find that my response to your style is very positive. I really like this a lot. It's not just "ok". It feels really right somehow. Keep doing what you're doing. It's very solid in design quality. It's more figurative than portrait. I think. It's the direction that I will go also.

Thank-you very much, Linda. I work and rework a painting until it does "feel right". I am not completely sure why something does feel right, but I think, for me, it has a lot to do with simplifying things and using stronger and more definite outlines and shapes, and also, with figures, a living personality.

I tend to need to create rather than portray people, so, no, I don't think I am a real portrait painter very often, although I do enjoy painting particular people now and again. This one, for instance.

:bewildere

I just read "Painting Methods of the Impressionists" by Bernard Dunstan. He talks a lot about lines(outlines) and about scraping off paint to leave ghosts and then doing multiple loose corrections. He says they did many thin layers until it was right.
I am most thrilled by a painting that is mostly lines, patches of color, and then as if by magic, parts of it appear real. It's that transformation from flat paint to something 3D that I enjoy most. In order for that to happen, at least part of the painting must be left in an unfinished state and equally important , part of it must have "spot on" reality.
I have just spent yesterday and today tearing out a wall in my studio. I'm hoping to get a new Nikon D200 in January. I'm hoping to actually get to trying some of those lines and scraping soon.

I used to think that of many of today's most notable painters, Burt Silverman had the most individual and idiosyncratic style. Then I saw some Degas paintings at the Met, and much of it was there...the loose areas vs. tighter finish in the same painting, thick and thin paint on the same canvas, the broken remnants of a calligraphic, drawn line, all contributing to a rich and non-literal and very painterly mystery and atmosphere. (He's owned to this influence himself.)

Interesting how traditions are passed along and are transformed by each new practitioner....