[Mike McCarty]

Sandra,

That's one cute kid alright.

I'm going to try and coax you away from painting these outdoor midday photographs. It's not that you can't paint them, you can, it's just that after you've finished they won't be considered successful serious portraits. These types of photographs are what should be considered terrific vacation pictures. You've caught your stepson in a nice spot and an expressive smile, but, there are certain deficiencies which exist which will prevent you from pulling this off successfully.

The first and most serious problem is the lighting. The direction of the sun is straight down and then all around. The face doesn't have a nickels difference in value change. And all this bright light has caused him to squint his eyes such that they've almost become slits. I'll bet under better indoor lighting he would have those eyes wide open and beautiful. There may also be some distortion in the hands which may cause them to look a little goofy.

Personally, and this is just me, I don't care for the artifacts. Cans of Coke, or other such commercial items tend to bring down the level of seriousness for me. I know these items exist in our lives, but I don't think they rise to the level that I would want to carry them foreword with my painting. It's not the same as a doll for a little girl, or a toy sailboat. I've seen it done successfully, but it's a tricky thing to me.

The trouble is when we get kids out like this we grab our camera and follow them around as they go about being kids. And then from time to time we holler "stop, look this way." The other trouble is that once in a great blue moon it produces a nice photo. But the vast majority of the time it will not. There are just to many things that have to fall in place in order for this to turn out right.

If you want good painting reference my advice is to go inside and design the light and the space, then, the play must stop for a period of time while we go about this difficult business.

As I look at some of your paintings I can see that you could handle the painting aspect very well if you would only create for yourself a quality road map. If you've decided that you want to paint from photographs, others would argue you away from that and that's fine, but if you want to go this way you've got to commit to create better material.

You say that you've already decided to use this photo as your reference, I wonder if I can get you to reconsider? What type of camera do you have? I'm guessing that you have access to your stepson on a regular basis.How about you and I go through some steps right here and create a good reference photo of your stepson?

I've spent some time in Austin it's one of my favorite cities.