Garden portrait
 

Just finished this yesterday, minutes before my client came to review it.

It's 28" x 40" oil on linen.

p.s. I'm going to have to take this off and re-square my stretchers, and re-stretch! Yikes! Any tips on that before I start would be much appreciated.

Sorry to hear about having to restretch the canvas. I will be watching for replies to this one myself. I ordered 4 giclees and I will have to restretch one of them as well.

I love the natural, outdoor setting. You handled portrait and landscape beautifully.

Cindy, excellent job on the painting. I am sure they will love it! You should not have any major issues stretching. Normal stretching procedure but use tacks first then when you are satisfied staples.

That's very beautiful Cindy, I loved the background.

Very nice feel to this, Cindy. Nicely done!

Hi Cindy, you've done a really nice job with the ever-tricky backlit sunshine setup and those subtle temperature shifts to model the forms. Your color handling is light and fresh, I like it. I also really like the assymetrical pyramid form of the children and the way the negative space of the legs echos the outline of the boys.

The facial expressions are relaxed and happy - kids the viewer wouldn't mind getting to know.

Cindy,

Your clients should be really happy with this. I especially like the way you've shown the relationship between the two brothers, and the distance in the garden (green/violet color and less detail--very atmospheric).

That it is technically very good goes without saying, Cindy, but I especially like the sensitivity and honesty with which you have done the faces.

Thank you all for your nice comments on my picture. I struggled over this background for quite a while - when I took the photos the black-eyed susans were all dead, so I had to cobble together references. The difficulty then became making it all into a cohesive whole. It gave me many sleepless nights.

Anyway - here's a couple of details of their faces.

The other one...

Thanks so much for posting these closeups, Cindy. Very nice! I especially love how that light falls on their hair.

Very well handled, Cindy! It is so very difficult to paint natural looking smiles, especially with teeth - very, very nice!

Thanks very much, Chris and Julie.

I'll be restretching this week - I'll report back how it goes in case anyone is interested.

Update on restretching -

All the horrible things I feared (cracking paint, canvas tearing, spontaneous combustion) did not come to pass. It was a piece of cake.

I wound up taking off an inch from the top, in order to better place them in the picture plane - so in the end, I'm glad I did have to tackle this project.

Hi Cindy -- don't know how I missed this... it's beautifully done! I especially appreciate how delicately you've handled the skin -- and those freckles! :)

Glad to hear that the re-stretching went well.

I'm glad your work didn't burn spontaneously, it's a nice portrait, with a very good sens of light...

Thanks, Terri & Marina.