"The incomparable, Jim Wilkes"
 

Here is another for the pile here...

36x24 oil on Canvas...

"The incomparable, Jim Wilkes"

Jim is a crazy old model that sits for me all the time. Jim fills me up with the best stories when he sits for me so I hire him often.
Johanna Spinks was painting with me in my studio for the first sitting of this one. We had a great time... Jim has no filter on his mouth so needless to say there was lots of blushing going on... Jo is a good sport though.

He's a professional Santa Claus every year too, but with some of the stories he tells, I wouldn't want to be sitting on his lap!

Enjoy

Hey, Tony, you're back!

Wow, I love this one! Nice varied , descriptive brushwork. I love the values and colors of the skintones as they recede into the shadows. He looks like a real character, just like you've desribed, so I think that means you captured his essence. Luckily you're too old to sit on his lap.

Alex

Another winner! Great use of soft and hidden edges.

Dear Tony,

This is a powerful painting and a poetic visual treat. I'm expecting it's another winner for you. Just as you've expressed a clear opinion about your subject in your introduction above, you are expressing a strong opinion in your paint as well. That is the hallmark of a great painting and painter.

You so poetically invent and use the light. This is not merely realism or impressionism in operation, but something more, an ideation in the poetics of opined illumination. For example, the way you mass the light on the face, yet less so on his hands, is part of a visual idealization and humanization. I expect the light falling on your subject was more even-handed and boring in reality, but here you have made an image dramatic, interesting, and narrative of this man's character. Bravo.

:thumbsup: :thumbsup:

Garth

Garth

Your elloquence is always well appreciated. For me its very humbling to have such a masterful painter like yourself see so many things in my work.

I am just trying to paint what I feel and I think you summed it up better than I could!
Thanks!
Tony