[Chris Saper]

Dear Pamela,

In addition to the excellent comments you have already received, I would add a couple of thoughts, the main one having to do with the composition - it may just be something that you'd consider in future paintings.

I think that we "buy" things, visually in photographs that we don't so easily accept in paintings - there are five chopped off limbs going into the sand pile. They act as visual arrows pulling the viewer's eye away from the kids' faces. There is also the area on our left where the boy's swimsuit, right below the red shirt edge, might be so close to the edge of the painting, so that when it is in a frame, you will get a tangent where the red shirt ends, also attracting the viewer's eye. The way to deal with the compositional questions, I think is to work out three value thumbnails before you begin so that you can see where you want to place different values to support your center of interest. Edge tangents are usually easy to fix, just put the painting into the frame to see how far the rabbet of the frame encroaches on the image, then adjust whatever you need to.

I think you made good decisions to call out more edges in the faces, but you might think about knocking down everything but the most important edges. The clothing has lots of equally sharp edges that are attention grabbers. The area where the red-shirt boy's hair and the toddler's hair touches is a little confusing as well.

Lastly, the colors in the clothing don't seem as well integrated as they could be - by sharing some color in adjacent shapes and areas, the colors will become more cohesive.

Good luck - this is a very ambitious painting!