[Tom Edgerton]

Kim--

I wouldn't be too put off by the counsel to avoid "offbeat" subjects. In my opinion, you can portray doggone near anything, and it will either work artistically or it won't, regardless of the painting's actual content. I have seen numerous paintings of pregnant women, and they work, totally. It basically comes back to whether an artist has the skill and experience to pull it off. But that's a big if.

Specifically, in regard to your bare-chested boy, it's not a question of whether to portray a little boy without a shirt, it cuts to the quality and completeness of your vision and execution. The problem I have with that painting is the quality of your reference material. It's obviously painted from a photo that was shot with a flash, or at least in an extremely severe light, which completely undercuts your ability to see and render form properly. If you had conceived this image and painted it exquisitely from life, no one would be complaining or finding it "shocking." The harshness comes not from the image's content or even from its point of view--idiosyncratic though it is--but from its harshness and lack of sensitivity in rendering. In other words, the actual formal qualities of the painting. NO artist could have painted a terrific painting if working from this reference alone.

Michele is on the mark when she counsels that you put in your portfolio what you want to sell and pitch it to whom you think your clients will be. But I disagree that there are very many subjects that are off limits, if one has sufficient ability to bring them across the finish line. And making that decision for oneself takes a certain degree of true objectivity.

But as I tell my students, you'll learn more from a big failure than a small success. You just might not want to put it in your book.

Best--TE