Mother with Child

[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.

[Christy Talbott]

Hi Thomasin, I love this painting!

You said you were doing this one to please yourself. I think we should always try to please ourselves when we paint. It seems to me when we succeed in that, we almost never fail to please others.

[Thomasin Dewhurst]

Thank-you Christy. I feel much healthier and able to withstand criticism and rejection when I am painting what I want when I want. At least then I can be sure of having pleasure and being happy, whereas relying on approval from others is always a bit of a risk, and so much time can be wasted in waiting for it.