Courtney and friend
 

This is Courtney, she was right at two years old when I photographed her sitting on my dining room table in front of a window.

From the start I was seduced by her downward pensive glance, not to mention her red hair and blue eyes.

Oil on New Traditions linen panel, oil primed, 20 x 16.

Mike,

this turned out just beautiful. :thumbsup:

It

Mike,

This came out to be absolutely beautiful! Congratulations. The edges are wonderful in this painting. And the background is just perfect.

She is so cute it almost makes me want to babysit. Almost.

Thank you both, Allan, and Kim.

Your both too kind I think.

Hi Mike,

I

Mike,

What I especially like about your style is the way you have focused on the structures.

They reminds me of a Danish painter / illustrator

[QUOTE]It

[QUOTE=Mike McCarty]I like that.

""Allan,
Do you mean that you viewed it hanging in your kitchen while eating your breakfast?""

Davre Gryn means Oatmeal - I watched the picture of the girls, on the package, while I had it with milk and sugar in the morning, years before I began painting.

""You give a very generous appraisal of my painting. ""

You

Dear Mike,

Please forgive my delay in checking in, this is a completely lovely painting! Beautifully placed, composed and delightful color harmony.

So nice to see your work again!

Mike, this has turned out beautifully and I think the background is terrific. I admire how you've handled all the varied textures, too. There's a lot of tenderness in this painting.

Shw turned out real sweet, Mike!! :thumbsup:

Chris and Linda,

Thank you artful ladies of Phoenix. With all the heat stress you've endured lately it's a wonder you've got strength enough to type.

LAERTES :

O heat, dry up my brains! tears seven times salt,
Burn out the sense and virtue of mine eye!
By heaven, thy madness shall be paid by weight,
Till our scale turn the beam. O rose of May!
Dear maid, kind sister, sweet Ophelia!

Patricia,

I takes one to know one.

What a grand finish. I enjoyed watching the process as well. Lovely colors you ended up with, don't you agree? Yes, indeed (thought I would answer that for you).

Thank you LIsa,

I did this painting for myself so I was able to experiment more than I would have ordinarily. Besides all the different backgrounds that I fumbled with there is also a wide variance of skin texture. Her face being smooth with the perimeter edge being the sharpest. The rest being slightly out of kilter with no hard edges. And then the background was done with a palette knife.

As I look at it I think I got close to my objective but did not reach it completely. One might argue that these divergent styles create a lack of cohesion.

One thing I learned is that I need to learn more about color temperature. It's good to know that you know things, but to discover what you don't know is even more important. Most of the time I don't even know what I don't know (I'm beginning to sound like Donald Rumsfeld). Trying to resolve the different temperature issues was a good learning experience for me.

Hi Mike,

It's been so interesting watching your progress on this painting. The result is really lovely. I am so glad you changed the background color. It really works! And you have captured that tender, chubby quality of your daughter without any corniness.

Alex

Thank you Alexandra,

I did like the slightly vulnerable look, however, this is not my daughter. My daughter is now twenty years old and off to college, sigh :( .

This is my daughter on the morning of her first day of school, also looking a little vulnerable.

Mike, How lovely.!!

I am so pleased Chris brough this back to the top so I could see it.

Thank you very much Tricia.

This is exactly what I mean when I encourage aspiring portrait artists to take their own photos and not copy client snapshots, or, even worse, commercial studio photos. You're bringing a big part of "you" to the work by taking your own photos. What we paint is more important than howwe paint it.