Graduation Gift
 

Oil on ABS panel, 24" x 30"

Wow, Linda, this is beautiful. Great pose. You also successfully rendered a potentially distracting background (with no tangent lines!). Glad you posted the close-up, too; the sparkle in her eyes is captured wonderfully.

Sincerely,

Linda, what a bold composition! What I am learning from you by looking at this is how a bold stripe pattern can be effectively kept in the background through the use of broken color. Well done! I am curious about your use of an ABS panel. How thick is it and how do you laminate it to a substrate support (plywood)? I have never tried working on ABS yet. Can you share more about what you like in working on ABS panels?

Garth

Oh Linda, she is beautiful! Your title has me curious. Did you do this as a gift? May I get on your Christmas list? :D

Oh, Linda, this is gorgeous - she is gorgeous. I am headed over to see this in person. What a stunning composition, color harmony, and what a painting.

Linda
This is masterful! One that deserves to be studied . Could you also post a closeup of the hands?

Thank you all for your kind and encouraging comments.

Garth, there's a long discussion about ABS panels at this post, and if you search there are many more (both the pros and cons of ABS) on the Forum: http://forum.portraitartist.com/show...&highlight=ABS . If you want to give it a try and if I get outside to sand some more of these and if you take me out for coffee when I get to Philly in a few weeks... I'll bring you one.

I was surprised to see that I have posted at least four examples of my ABS paintings on the Forum over the past year or so. Actually, I do paint on other types of panels. Since I have a lifetime supply of ABS I tend to noodle around on it a lot.

Bill Whitaker has just posted a beautiful example of what can be done with ABS and how to sand it over on this link:
http://forum.portraitartist.com/showthread.php?t=4669

I think ABS is especially wonderful in small paintings where you can really obsess over the surface quality of the painting.

My painting was selectively sanded: sanded in the flesh sections and the background was purposely kept textured.
By the way, I'm using much less Maroger than I used to on these ABS panels. I was getting too much glare in the end product.

Linda--

Told ya!

Best--TE

Beautiful painting
 

Linda,

This is a beautiful painting, your colors are magnificent!

Joan

Spectacular, Linda! Your best yet. I particularly like the warm shadows and the unusual effect of the stripes in the background. Lots of those verticals we talked about!