Emily

[Alexandra Tyng]

Hi Linda,

What a wonderful portrait! The personality of this young woman really makes an impression. I love the gaminish ears, the sparkly eyes and the curvy eyebrows and lip corners. She doesn't look like she's going to sit in that 2-D rectangle for long! I admire your colorful, lively application of paint. Terrific!

Alex

[Heidi Maiers]

No comment, just applause (and lots of it!)

[Mark Lovett]

Absolutely beautiful Linda. I love the interplay of warm and cool colors in the skin tone. Now it's your turn to tell me what colors are on your palette, although I know that it's not in the paint, but in the skill of the painter.

[Linda Brandon]

Alex and Heidi, thank you so much for your generous comments.

Mark, thank you. This is an example of trying to get a cool diffuse north light from life effect in a portrait. I'm not able to get this kind of subtle skin modelling with all the temperature changes unless I get conditions like this. I'm trying to set up photographs that simulate north light as it would fall on a face when you work from life. It's not especially easy to do although bracketing helps - what happens in most photographs is that the lit side tends to dissolve into one light patch and big areas get blown out. (This is what I mean when I keep telling people they are too photographic; the human eye would not have seen the area in the same way.) . I hire models to sit in my studio for me so I get some regular practise with natural light work. When I shoot people under natural north light I usually still have the blown-out-lights problem. This was a commission though, and I ended up shooting my client with a strobe and soft box setup.

I hope this makes sense. This is just one way, and certainly not the only way to paint. I don't do outdoor portraits like this, either.

My palette is pretty much the same (except for the new yellow) as what I used in Graduation Gift.

[Jimmie Arroyo]

Linda, que linda! The smile is just perfect. I'd love to see it in person. Oh yeah, you cancelled our plans of meeting, oh, too bad, I would have liked to show you my pastels in person also to see the noses real close, but whatever. Pfffftttt.

[Elizabeth Schott]

Linda this is wonderful, certainly one of my favorites! Wow, you feel like as a viewer you could groom her eyebrows!

Awesome!

[Virginia Branch]

Linda, I like your style and I love this portrait!

[Mary Sparrow]

Oh Linda, I can't say anything that hasn't been said, it is REALLY beautiful!

[Tom Edgerton]

Linda--

Just checked back in today...

This is Fabulous! My favorite so far. Wonderful color(s) in skin! Wish you'd come teach me how.

She's beeyoootiful.

--TE

[Janel Maples]

Congratulations on a beautiful portrait. I love her eyebrows! Three pages of compliments don't leave much that hasn't been said so ditto to it all, I like it.