Mother with Child

[Sharon Knettell]

This is one of the loveliest paintings that has been posted here.

The paint really lives. The face has it's own reality without being at all photograhic. Just lovely.

[Thomasin Dewhurst]

Wow. Thank-you so much for all your warm comments. I feel so emancipated. That I have found something in my work that comes from the core of me, and it's actually approved of. I really didn't expect it, but I am so appreciative of it.

Karine - the background is one of the things that I feel free about. That I didn't "finish" it - I trusted my gut conviction that it felt like light.

Marina - Those 2 minute sketches that I usually do of my 2 year old really helped me get to know what it was a loved drawing about him, and helped me transfer it into paint, so memory played a part too in the rendering of his head. I am trying to get my paintings more like those sketches.

Grethe - Maybe I took from Gullv

[Tom Edgerton]

Terrific!

[Thomasin Dewhurst]

Thank-you very much, Tom!

[Alan Melson]

I love the emotional quality this painting has. Captivating. And the way you painted your child slightly out of focus leaving the main focus on your face and eyes in particular.

[Thomasin Dewhurst]

Thank-you very much Alan. It's fortunate that the child's out-of-focus quality does work, because he wouldn't sit still long enough to get more detail in it!

[Ilaria Rosselli Del Turco]

Thomasin, one leaves for a few days and you just land this new benchmark for us all!

A couple of questions because I am not sure I can overcome envy and a flow of negative feelings upon my own work right now.
-Do you work in natural light and use the spot to enhance colours? When i add artificial light everything just seems to become duller!
- Your paintings seem to have a lot of texture, is that just paint build up or do you work on a gesso textured surface?
Ilaria

[Thomasin Dewhurst]

Oh don't be envious, Ilaria. I was inspired by your approval of H

[Margaret Ferguson]

What a lovely effect, your paintings remind me of mother of pearl, they just glow. I love your palette and you know when to stop adding details at the perfect stage.
Thank you for the mention of Hakon Gullvag, what an inspiring style he has too.

[Thomasin Dewhurst]

Thank-you Margaret. I am trying to get the essence of what really moves me to paint a figure, and leave out or remove the rest. Sometimes it is difficult to know what that essence is, but finding it has a lot to do with the application of the paint i.e. putting the paint on in such a way as to suggest rather than illustrate things. In this way the painting tells me a story - rather than me having a predetermined story that I want to impose on the painting.