Woman With a Glass Earring
 

My apologies and gratitude to Vermeer. This is from a series of paintings entitled "Visual Haiku," all of which are dedicated to my wife.

Clive,

This is a highly unusual color scheme combined with well-modeled features. I think it takes a bit of daring to post this on a forum of traditional portrait painters. You've piqued my curiosity: how did you think of using red shadow, since this is obviously a reference to Vermeer's work?

Alex

Alex,

Me again. Yes I did deliberately use warmer colors for the shadows. Vermeer's subjects are decidedly more distant and cooler (all that Dutch cold air and delft blue!). In this instance I wanted the subject (since she is very close to my heart) to radiate a warmth and vitality, rather than a cool stillness.

By the way Alex, I have long been an admirer of your portrait work, particularly your portraits of Nathaniel Kahn and Edna Andrade.