Leaning Figure

[Thomasin Dewhurst]

Another new one. 24' x 36". Oil on canvas.

[Stanka Kordic]

Dear Thomasin-

The command of your language with paint keeps getting better with each new work.

I especially admire what's happening in this one with the warm and cool flesh colors moving our eye around the canvas. The dark is masterfully placed, as is the famous Thomasin Texture to describe the form. Wonderful! I so look forward to seeing new work from you here. Keep it coming.

All best,
Stanka

[Carlos Ygoa]

Thomasin,
I find very impressive the way the figure is almost "sculpted" with paint. The result is almost tangible.
Also very astute way of balancing off the weight of the figure leaning to the right with the dark mass on the left.

[Thomasin Dewhurst]

Dear Stanka and Carlos,

Thank-you very much for your kind comments. I find I have to be very aware these days of my tendency to "do properly" the areas that work as they are in their scruffy, unfinished state. It is a balance between getting a rich enough surface of paint and leaving the initial marks, which carry the essence of my artistic response to the figure. Usually I have to re-make those initial marks once the paint surface has been built up enough. there is one blessing to trying to "do properly" the sketched figure - I completely deaden it and have to start again, and when I do start again I find the deadening of the figure has actually built up a rich, suggestive surface (once the figure has been painted anew over the top).

[Alexandra Tyng]

Thomasin,

I feel the same way about this piece as I do about your other painting, Figure in Motion. It's intriguing that, in both, you have avoided articulating the eyes, yet they are there--something that many artists would not even want to try. It's interesting that we often say the eyes are the "windows of the soul" and yet there is so much soul in these paintings. This raises the question: are the eyes really the windows of the soul, or can soul be expressed in other ways? Or could the eyes express soul when they are barely suggested in paint, rather than rendered in detail? I think the answer t both questions may be "yes."

[Mary Cupp]

Hey Tomasin,

I am in awe of this painting. The head is superb. I am really trying to learn from you how to sculpt form but you are light years ahead of me in this. It amazes me how you do this with values that are kept so close.

Just to get nit picky, the one thing I notice in this painting that seems to have a slight problem is that the arm on the left seems to feel a bit crowded by the edge of the canvas. I think this feeling may come from the corner of the inside of the arm coming so close to the edge of the canvas that it forms a tangent. This makes the shoulder feel a bit pressured.

[Alexandra Tyng]

Mary,

I just want to remind you that no critiques are allowed in the Unveilings section. I know you admire Thomasin's work and meant your comment in an entirely constructive way (and I'm sure she realizes that, too), but if someone has posted a work in "Unveilings" the best way to offer a suggestions is to send the artist a private message.

[Thomasin Dewhurst]

Mary, thank-you for your very encouraging comments. I think the reason the painting looks sculpted is because the values are so close. I was once painting an arm when I was a student (I have attached the picture below plus a detail of "Leaning Figure"), and I mixed some flesh-coloured paint to get the colour, temperature and tone of the skin, and then added the minutest amount of cerulean blue for the inner arm, and the minutest amount of white for the most forward part of the arm and it created a really strong sensation of tactile three-dimensionalism. Also, I tend to rub in the slightly absorptive light areas (those that are not quite in the shade but not fully in the light, and scumble on the the highlights (and scumble on the highlights when the paint underneath is dryer so the white sits on top and doesn't get absorbed and lose brightness and texture).

[Thomasin Dewhurst]

Alex, thank-you again for your interesting comments. In this picture, and in others I have done, I find the eyes incongruous with rest of the figure, but the shape of the bone and the shadows around the eye sockets very compatible, so it is always a struggle to try and get something that works (and not end up with something odd or ghoulish) and that does suggest the eyes without illustrating them. What I feel I end up with is the expression and the form without describing the eyes themselves. It's not what I want completely - but I as yet don't know what that is.