Thanks for this, but you did all of the heavy lifting. Your comments touched me and made me think of the following by Andrew Wyeth:

"...I've been painting like fury now for forty years...I have a feeling. You paint about as far as your emotions go, and that's about it."

Peace to you all--TE

Lovely, meaningful piece.

Last year I shot some extensive reference photos of my parents. I don't know when I'll paint from them but, no matter what happens to my folks (they're in their 70's) I'll have those reference photos.

Cool background
 

This is a loving tribute!

Sorry, I have come in late to this thread. The main thing that I noticed from the beginning is how the warm backgound competes with the face for attention. If the suit were a more chromatic blue, I think you could grey down the background succesfully. I would also like to see an area of lost edges around the hair on our right.

Perhaps a go at these ideas in Photoshop would help visualize before going back into this lovely portrait?

Sorry to disagree with Jeanine, but I like the warm background. I think it brings out his blue eyes by contrast.

Fine tuning
 

Michelle,

Thank you, I too think the background is a plus, I am however putting back a little of the hair detail on our right, I lost some of the gray, and the lost edge, got found for awhile, I'll post the repairs when I can.

Comment retracted....didn't see the beautiful finished product at the end of the thread.