Champion of show
 

I am very pleased to announce my win as champion portrait at the Royal Queensland show in Australia. It is of my son Adriel who has been undergoing cancer treatment. I started it before his chemotherapy and finished it when his hair grew back. I was very emotionally moved whilst working on it. The judges comments were that it is "a small naturalistic portrait free of devices. Its success comes from a masterful use of color compliments within a blue range, and the seemingly effortless ability to imbue the subject with life and personality."
Have attached a picture.
Pam

Congratulations, Pamela! It's nice to see your work here, and especially nice to hear of your award! I am sorry to her that your son has had to go through such an ordeal.

The judges were so right to say the portrait is without gimmicks, and I am thrilled that they valued this quality enough to award you the top prize. Too often I see portraits painted by highly skilled artists that leave me cold because the subject is intentionally "on show." Maybe the subject is meant to symbolize something, or maybe the portrait expresses an attitude or a fantasy. The result is a display of skill without connection to the subject. Yours does not have a show-off-y quality. Its beauty lies in its directness. You communicate your emotional connection to the viewer very successfully. It is hard to look away from his eyes, they are so real and say so much!

Congratulations on the award Pamela! I too can feel the emotional connection with your son. It is a beautiful and special portrait.

Thank you very much for your encouraging comments Alexandra and Christy. I am working on portraits of all my family and I have a brand new grandson to do as well. I love doing people I am close to. I plan on doing myself with five of my friends after Rubens but so far I have only stretched the canvas ready. We have very little time in between hospital visits and baby arriving at the other end of Australia in Tasmania. My sons hopefully last operation is on next Monday. One positive though is that my drawing has much improved as I do a lot of sketches at the hospital. Put some of them of his last operation on raw linen canvas with potassium permanganate and stitching, called it "Time Out" and got in as a short listed finalist in a big open competition recently. I was thrilled at the judges comments about my sketches. I just love sketching groups of people from life especially when they are acting normal and don't know I'm drawing them. I'm forced to catch the essence of them in what they are doing and their relationship with each other with as few marks as possible in as short a time as possible as I never know when they will move away. These all tell me a story in my diary which I'd never capture with a camera. One drawing is way better than a hundred photos in my opinion. Anyway I do rave on when I get going so bye for now. Thanks again.
Pam