Four Siblings

[Mary Ann Archibald]

This is soooo beautiful.

Smart family who commissioned that!

[Marina Dieul]

Compelling work Alex!
I know what a challenge it must have been to have 4 children posing ! And then to obtain a nice composition : you succeded beautifully !
I love how you cut the space behind the scene with the vertical lines of the black screen, (always something to learn about the composition with you...)
And the children are very lively.
Beautiful !

[Enzie Shahmiri]

Alex, what a beautiful painting! I love everything about it....

Did you take seperate photos and arrange the kids as you saw fit for the painting? I would love to hear how you went about creating such a large multi sibling composition.

[Carol Norton]

Originally Posted by Marina Dieul

Compelling work Alex!
I know what a challenge it must have been to have 4 children posing ! And then to obtain a nice composition : you succeded beautifully !
I love how you cut the space behind the scene with the vertical lines of the black screen, (always something to learn about the composition with you...)
And the children are very lively.
Beautiful !

I, too, would love to know how you went about the construction of this beautiful painting.

[Ilaria Rosselli Del Turco]

Oh Alex, this is just so beautiful.
I love the skintones. Actually there's not a single thing in this work that I don't love.
Sargent's girls come to mind immediately, for the light and its direction, but it is also the isolation of the sitters that refers to that portrait.
I also particulalrly like the tilt of the carpet that projects the subject toward us and puts us right into that room: when I look at it I can feel my feet on that floor.


I always enjoy portraits that are theatrical: the kids are sitting that way to present themselves to the artist, the gestures are all because of the artist: the little girl would show her toy, the boy is performing his puppet show, the eldest is at ease, looking, the other boy maybe just wants to leave.
This work has nothing to do with a casual snapshot, there is a real tension here, a compelling work.

[Alexandra Tyng]

Oh, Ilaria! And to think we saw you the following day, and observed a few Sargents and many Hogarths! That may have influenced me. Thank you so much for your enthusiasm. It means a lot.

I forgot to answer the specific question about whether I took separate photos of each child. I got many group shots, which helped to document the space, though in the painting I corrected for photo distortion. (Garth helped advise me on this, and with other perspective issues, on a visit to my studio as I was struggling with the portrait.) I also took individual shots, and smaller group shots. They tended to wander in and out but I had the help of their mother and nanny, who kept getting them back in place while I snapped away. I find that the resolution on my digital images is good enough that I can use any photo of any one person and enlarge it to get all the detail I need--a huge advantage of digital photography.

[Mary Cupp]

Alex,

You mention the correction for some of the distortions of photography. This is what strikes me about your construction of space. It feels so natural. Could you go into a bit of detail about how you make this adjustment. It could be most instructive. Thanks.

[Thomasin Dewhurst]

Really wonderful painting, Alex. So beautifully and intelligently composed. I also think the lit panel on the blue screen behind the children is a perfect compositional element - beautiful in itself, and also brilliant at bringing the whole painting together. And such lovely brushwork. I am so pleased to have seen this today. (Congratulations, too, on your recent honour at the PSOA outdoor light competition. So well deserved!)

[Alexandra Tyng]

Thank you, Mary and Thomasin!

Mary, to answer you question about photographic distortion, I tried to correct for it while taking photos by standing as far back from the group as possible. I stood about 15 feet away and crouched down slightly so I was only a little above the taller children's heads (standing). I was trying to minimize the foreshortening of their lower bodies. Still, there was a problem of the children on the couch being quite a bit smaller than the children in front of the couch. I think this was due to the fact that I had to adjust my zoom lens to a wide angle to get everyone into the group shots. The distortion was lessened when I zoomed in to more like 55 mm (old-fashioned equivalent) and focused on one or two in the group. I played with printed copies of the figures, printed at different sizes, eyeballing what I thought looked right. Garth Herrick came over to my studio to see the progress and he thought I could go farther in minimizing the difference in size. (It always helps to have another artist's eye!) I just kept going until it looked right. I then made a photo-pastiche of the children at corrected sizes, and planned my composition and canvas size from that. I hope that explains my process.

Thomasin, glad you appreciate the panel on the screen. When the children's mother sent me pictures of their living room, I was immediately enthusiastic about using the screen as a background, but I didn't want to make the panels all dark (too flat) or completely alternating (too repetitive) Picking out one panel to catch more light seemed like a good solution, also drawing attention to the action in the center of the portrait. Thank you also for mentioning the recent PSA award!

[Enzie Shahmiri]

Alex,

It sounds like you had your work cut out for you. You did a superb job given all the constraints. Thank you for explaining the process of how you developed the painting.