Sleeping Boy

[Thomasin Dewhurst]

I finished this one. It was posted earlier in the works-in-progress section.

I thought I would post it as it is accompanying the Figure on Stage to the Blackheath Gallery in London next week for their Autumn exhibition, along with about 3 drawings.

It is 24" x 20", oil on canvas.

[Linda Brandon]

Congratulations for being accepted into a gallery, Thomasin! What a wonderful feeling that must be, and I'm very happy for you. One of the things I like about your work is that you so clearly think like a painter and use all the qualities characteristic of the medium, layering, texture, brushstrokes, etc. . It's a paradigm shift from what most traditional portrait painters are doing and always interesting to look at.

[Carlos Ygoa]

Hello Thomasin,

This piece brings to mind some of M. Cassat

[Garth Herrick]

Man, I love this! A compostional and textural feast.

Congratulations Thomasin (I thought is was done before; I always loved this one).

Garth

[Thomasin Dewhurst]

Thank-you, Garth. I really do appreciate your comments about my work especially when I appreciate your own work so much, so thank-you very much again! I am very pleased you like it.

[Alexandra Tyng]

Thomasin, I realized I hadn't commented on this in its finished state. One thing to add to Sharon's comment about painting with color: you make it look so simple. The placement of each color, the abstractness of each piece, each stroke, is evident, yet the energy in the surface is serene, totally unlike expressionism (which I also enjoy because of the excitement).

I also really like the way you resolved the floor and wall. The straightness of the line is reassuring. And I love the way you've said just enough about his features and the planes of his face. So many artists say too much, go too far, and this could easily become corny in the wrong hands. Yours belongs in a museum. I mean it!

[Enzie Shahmiri]

Thomasin, I too want to congratulate you on your success and wish you the best at the exhibit.

[Thomasin Dewhurst]

I am so sorry, Linda and Carlos, for not replying initially to your posts - I must have been half asleep having just returned from a rather busy weekend away! (I thought I had already replied. Oh dear!)

Anyway, thank-you Linda for your encouragement and your appreciation. I often feel so dissatisfied at the end of a painting - as though I have been working towards a final triumphant conclusion, but it is always blocked by how I finish the piece. So I often, these days, leave the painting unfinished to a degree because by doing that it retains its feeling of possibility, of potential, and even though I dislike leaving a work unfinished, I dislike it less than the dull way I tend to finish it when I do try to finish it. So your comments are really supportive when I feel so anxious about my painting decisions.

Carlos, thank-you also for your comments. This is an earlier painting, from around the end of last year, or the beginning of this year (can't quite remember). I wasn't deliberately changing direction - just following what was going right. It is something I did from a photograph. When I work from a photograph things do tend to go in a different direction. Working from photos is not necessarily a completely bad thing. There is an art to working from photos (which I haven't totally mastered) where your focus should be on the painting so that you are really creating something from your imagination with the photograph as merely a reference. When you are being a slave to a photo that is when it is killing! Degas was a great master at working from photos, wasn't he?

Sharon, thanks very much, as usual. I very, very often have your ideas and excitement in my mind when I am painting, as you know. This was earlier than you had started really talking about colour and Japanese prints, but I look at from a different angle at this later date after hearing your ideas. I am re-inspired by your fresh ideas. It is a good thing, I am finding, that if I am stuck and beginning to despise my current work to actually out it away and look at it again with new ideas. This is obvious, I know, but I am a very slow learner!

Alex! As usual you are much too kind! I did appreciate your comments during its progress, and they helped very much. You make me want to paint, paint, paint!

Enzie, thank-you for your encouragement. The exhibition was relatively successful in that I sold one drawing, but that's better than last year, anyway.

[Thomasin Dewhurst]

Carlos here are two drawings. The Sleeping Man was the one that sold. It is about 8 x 10", charcoal on paper. The Tree (which I naughtily snuck in, but which can be deleted if it in too inappropriate) is one similar to the one at the exhibition (I don't have a photo here of the exact one I sent).

[Thomasin Dewhurst]

Tree is also about 8" x 10", charcoal on paper.