Mother with Child
 

This is my son and I. 36" x 24" oil on canvas finished a day or two ago.

Thomasin,

Wonderful! I don't know how you managed to do this from life. Did you pose yourself first, then held your son for short periods of time? Tell me your secret. Anyway, I think it's brilliant how you stopped at just the right point modeling his face, so that just the delicate colors describe the cheeks and nose, and you really don't need any more information to see how sweet he is. Your face captures the viewer's attention and holds it. There's a very protective feeling about your look and arm gesture. It also looks as if the viewer has startled you, walking in on a private moment between mother and child. I really love this--oh, I haven't even said anything about the fresh, clean color (are those cads in the shadows?) and great big wonderful swathes of color/light in the background. I think THIS is a prizewinner--don't give up.

Thomasin,

I'm impressed. Spontaneous and strong, and I love your original background... very inspiring. I love this painting and wish I could see it "for real".
Congratulations and thank you for sharing!

Karine

Very nice work, Thomasin !
I like it a lot. Your colors seem to glow and are very particular to you. Like Alex, i'm also very curious to know how you painted this from life. I was able to draw my 5 years old for 1 hour, but my 2 years old: never more than 1 or 2 mn sketches...(and with the thumb in the mouth)

Thank you so much for your replies. Gosh! I really didn't think anyone would like this. I put it up to see how badly people would react to it. I really never expected such enthusiasm. I was actually influenced by [URL=http://www.hakon-gullvag.no/]H

Thomasin, this is lovely. And I see no Gullv

VERY nice; very strong, very personal. I like the "arrepentimiento" (or was it?) of your son

This is one of the loveliest paintings that has been posted here.

The paint really lives. The face has it's own reality without being at all photograhic. Just lovely.

Wow. Thank-you so much for all your warm comments. I feel so emancipated. That I have found something in my work that comes from the core of me, and it's actually approved of. I really didn't expect it, but I am so appreciative of it.

Karine - the background is one of the things that I feel free about. That I didn't "finish" it - I trusted my gut conviction that it felt like light.

Marina - Those 2 minute sketches that I usually do of my 2 year old really helped me get to know what it was a loved drawing about him, and helped me transfer it into paint, so memory played a part too in the rendering of his head. I am trying to get my paintings more like those sketches.

Grethe - Maybe I took from Gullv

Terrific!

Thank-you very much, Tom!

I love the emotional quality this painting has. Captivating. And the way you painted your child slightly out of focus leaving the main focus on your face and eyes in particular.

Thank-you very much Alan. It's fortunate that the child's out-of-focus quality does work, because he wouldn't sit still long enough to get more detail in it!

Thomasin, one leaves for a few days and you just land this new benchmark for us all!

A couple of questions because I am not sure I can overcome envy and a flow of negative feelings upon my own work right now.
-Do you work in natural light and use the spot to enhance colours? When i add artificial light everything just seems to become duller!
- Your paintings seem to have a lot of texture, is that just paint build up or do you work on a gesso textured surface?
Ilaria

Oh don't be envious, Ilaria. I was inspired by your approval of H

Glowing!
 

What a lovely effect, your paintings remind me of mother of pearl, they just glow. I love your palette and you know when to stop adding details at the perfect stage.
Thank you for the mention of Hakon Gullvag, what an inspiring style he has too.

Thank-you Margaret. I am trying to get the essence of what really moves me to paint a figure, and leave out or remove the rest. Sometimes it is difficult to know what that essence is, but finding it has a lot to do with the application of the paint i.e. putting the paint on in such a way as to suggest rather than illustrate things. In this way the painting tells me a story - rather than me having a predetermined story that I want to impose on the painting.

Hi Thomasin, I love this painting!

You said you were doing this one to please yourself. I think we should always try to please ourselves when we paint. It seems to me when we succeed in that, we almost never fail to please others.

Thank-you Christy. I feel much healthier and able to withstand criticism and rejection when I am painting what I want when I want. At least then I can be sure of having pleasure and being happy, whereas relying on approval from others is always a bit of a risk, and so much time can be wasted in waiting for it.