Late post
 

These are the brother and sister of a little boy whose portrait sketch I have posted a while ago.These were done in March.
I have tried to be as loose aspossible and applied paint freely and am quite satisfied with the results.
I have learned a lot from these works, mainly I have been brave and stopped as soon as it was "enough", leaving some parts just barely drawn. I also tried to ignore outlines and let the colour just expand.
And it took much less than usual!
Ilaria

Congratulations, Illaria they are both so beautiful. I love the light impressionistic style that you have been so successful with.

These are terrific, Ilaria! I love the brushwork on these - you really have communicated a feeling of life and freshness, visual qualities which are so often missing in tighter painting and much of photorealism. I also love how you have purposely eliminated the outlines to these forms - it conveys a feeling of movement and convexity, two concepts that (to my thinking) are paramount when painting children. Brava!

Hello Ilaria

These are very good. The figures have great solidity to them, and a focus, while successfully remaining part of the picture as a whole. The fabric of the clothes is painted very well - it has a lovely light touch, and you've captured the crispness of the folds beautifully. Very well done.

Such beautiful work, Ilaria! I'm always struck by the luminous quality of your light. I can look at these and feel the painting process in them, even more than in your other work.

There's something about your work that reminds me a little of Burt Silverman's. I think it's the luminosity, also the love of blue, but also in these especially you are painting soft edges or not articulating the edges in certain places, and then painting decisive, sharp edges where they are needed. It's this selective, thoughtful process that I admire.

Dear Ilaria,

This is a highly successful pair, with magical notes and passages. I have to look at and absorb these for a while to observe how you can say so much with such concise and assertive brushwork. We somehow know those are soft, rounded legs of a child, even though you employ the absolute minimum of planes and strokes in their depiction, and yet there is that contradictory solid chunky sculptural quality in those very brush strokes that prove your great talent. The compressed values make way for inventive interplay of colors, and the way they bleed beyond imagined edges is wonderful. I always look forward to your luminous creations; congratulations!

Garth

Thank you so much to all of you for your kind comments.
Having the opportunity of being reviewed by artists like you does add a lot to my confidence. Even though my clients were very satisfied, the most important opinion for me is the competence of your comments here.
I am working on painting with more ease and freedom, but only you can really understand what a long way one has to go before aquiring those skills. Ignoring the outlines, working on edges, obliterating useless details, juxtaposing colours, they are all a product of thinking very hard, elaborating on the painting. You can't imagine how happy I am that this comes through at least to art-trained eyes.
I haven't been posting many works recently since I have been mainly painting still-life (I have a possible show in sight). Still life is unpressurized and allows me to practice and try new ideas, I hope that I will be able to transfer what I have been learning into future portraits.
Thank you again
Ilaria

Ilaria--

Wonderful, simple and spontaneous! And I will use the above list of what you tried to remember as you were painting as a checklist for my own work.

Thanks--TE

I agree with all- these portraits are engaging and compelling- a painter's dream to be be to find clients who see like artists.

Congrats.

Oh Ilaria, I like these! They are just infused with light and life.

Jean