Quick life painting & longer portrait
 

Here's a quick one I did of my son - 1/2 an hour (you can probably tell!). This is actually a roughly 10" x 12" detail from a 16" x 20" but the rest of it is so unfinished I thought I would cut it down to a smaller painting. It's oil on canvas, finished a day or two ago.

The second is a longer portrait that I am not too sure about. I like the marks but the blue under the chin seems to need to be pulled back a bit. I thought I would post it anyway. 16" x 20", oil on canvas, finished (so far) in Jan. 2006.

DearThomasin,

I love the immediacy in your color, values and brushwork. I would sure call the second piece finished and move on to a new one. That you should post as well :)

Your handling of the brush seems very spontaneous and quick while at the same time very well-meditated and sure. Joaquin Sorolla once said that, in his opinion, portraits should be painted quickly, that the result should appear to have been painted with great facility and in one sitting. I think he would have liked these two paintings of yours.

Thomasin,

These are wonderful just as they are! Even though the first one is very rough, you ought to win a medal for just attempting it. In the second one, I love the colors in the flesh and the green light in the eye. You make it seem easy to describe form with color and not much value change, but it really very hard for most people to do--you have to be very good at observation and delight in your ability even if you are not sure of the results, and this I admire in you and your work.

Thomasin,
I have seen these two works on your website and passed some time admiring your skill.
The boy is very energetic and immediate, but there is something that I find not convincing in the shape of the head and the location of the year that I would have liked to see prioritized in respect to other parts, for example the eyebrow. I mean that in my opinion, considering the short time, those indications would have been important to put down. I presume the cartoon just finished...
The other one instead is more elaborated with references to Freud's work. As usual the flesh is very present and real, and the structure of the head is as important her gaze.
The roughness and relentessness of the your canvas surface always reminds us that the painting is there and present, and not only we are staring at the image but also at the process of its working, and talks about the perennial negotiation between flatness and three-dimentionality.
Ilaria

Thank-you all for commenting.

Chris - your encouragement (and permission to stop!) means a lot to me. Thank-you.

Carlos - thank-you for your thoughtful comment. I admire Sorolla's facility and feeling for drawing. He also has a feeling for elegance in a figure, like Sargent, which I admire also, but which I seem not to be able to achieve. My instinct is for the sculptural forms and angles of planes. I can't get away from it.

And this brings me to Alex's comment: I have had an ongoing battle for ages between what my instincts want to put down and what I would like to put down, and my instinct is winning. So even if I try to wangle the result into something I would like to see it never really happens so I am beginning to allow myself to let things go. There are two comforting certainties: you'll always end up with some form of painting and you can always scrape it off.

Ilaria - thank-you for your honest criticism. Even though this isn't a crit I appreciate you letting me know of your misgivings about the work. What you noticed about the boy's head is right. It is too narrow. He was leaning up against a chair but I didn't have time to put that in, and the ear, you're right, it is in the wrong place. I have plenty of reasonable priced canvases to do some more sketches of my son in oils and these things will be addressed. One thing I didn't want to do was "fix it up". Accept the metaphorical cellulite and flabbiness of these works as something indicative of humanness (on both the artist's and sitter's part). I am much happier this way.

On your note about the likeness to Freud - he must be somewhere in my subconscious because I really try hard not to paint like him. I do really appreciate most of his work, but he is so distinctive (like Bacon) that it's a bit infra dig. to use his style. Another thing I can't get way from, I suppose.

Thanks again for the always stimulating discourses.

This is so inspiring! Thank-you Ilaria!

Lovely slurpy paint quality.

I applaud you trying to paint the impossible. However before the advent of cameras, the rich and famous were always desirous of having their precious little ones painted.

I am sure they must have sweated it out, so this is great practice if you ever want to do paintings of children for pay or fun (?) that have this spontaneous quality.

Sharon, thank-you! Sorry for the very late response. I have just been going through the paintings from life section and saw that, very rudely, I hadn't replied to you here.

I building up to doing another painting of my son from life - hopefully not quite so quick as this one. (I wish I could download Linda Brandon to look over my shoulder and encourage me onwards!).

Your work is always unique and beautiful.