Woman Wading

[Thomasin Dewhurst]

This is oil on canvas, 39" x 30", begun and finished in 2010.

(High resolution version)

[Mara Schasteen]

As always, I love your work, Thomasin. I saw this last evening and went to bed thinking about it. The palette is so warm and still so serene and the lighting you achieved on her chest area is magic. I love it. You control the values in skin and facial features so superbly. I am in awe.

[Thomasin Dewhurst]

Thank-you Mara, for your kind words. I am very pleased you like it.

I did this one after this watercolour painting and it really helped relax my oil painting.

[Mara Schasteen]

Very interesting! Would you mind explaining a bit of your process for painting skin? It looks so effortless and the paint application looks so ... "liquid." Thanks!

[Carlos Ygoa]

Outstanding work, Thomasin!
As is to be expected, another great lesson in paint handling. Every single aspect of this piece is impressive and the usual tangible quality of the flesh is once again achieved in a really superlative manner. It was a real treat looking at the HR image. I will have to come back and look at this many times (or save it in my hard drive, if you don

[Thomasin Dewhurst]

Hello Mara,

Thanks again for your kind comments. Doing the watercolour forces me to look at what is actually happening on the paper. The marks turn out so differently from the expected and actually get a real sense of solidity quickly (paradoxically to the thinness of the water paint), so things actually happen quickly and change often, making me thing of the idea behind the painting more and how it changes with the changing marks on the paper.

With the oil, doing it afterwards, I lost some of the tendency to build up the paint thickly to get a sense of solid flesh - there's a lot more rubbing the paint into the canvas to make a sort of opaque glaze for the mid shadows, and I used a lot more linseed oil in the dark shadow areas. Only the really highlighted areas were scumbled on more thickly. I also used more lines to help define the edges and contours, so as to leave the paint in a more suggestive form - which is really satisfying to me - and not to have to overwork it to make it appear real.

I have been looking at Rembrandt (for ages I haven't like his work at all, but suddenly came round to it again), and it seems like he did an illusion of an illusion - i.e. using quite thin, short-worked paint in such a way as to give an illusion of thick paint recreating solid flesh. Some of his paintings seem to have been such arduous jobs, but I think they are in fact quite simple, with lots of of small suggestive lines, and intelligent compositions as to just seem arduous, but actually quickly achieved. With the work enjoyably in the idea behind the painting and not with the pursuit of technical success.

[Thomasin Dewhurst]

Hello Carlos,

Thank-you very much for your compliments. I am very pleased you like it. Of course you can save it to your hard drive - I am flattered you want to!

[Mara Schasteen]

Thomasin, I truly appreciate you taking time out to explain your work. There is so much meat to chew on in these few sentences! You've inspired me to try some new techniques and also to look into Rembrandt's work more closely. If you ever see me post a pale attempt to try out something similiar to your style, please forgive me! I'm in learning mode, and I have a long, long way to go. Thank you so much for helping me along!

[Thomasin Dewhurst]

Gosh - I am so pleased to be of help, Mara. Usually it is me learning from everyone else!

[Margaret Ferguson]

Absolutely beautiful, hypnotic; I think you should count this as one of your masterpieces! Thank you for sharing your technique, too.