This is a detail of today’s painting, showing my favourite part – the expression on this little guy’s face. When was the last time you were this excited?
Since painting faces and children didn’t seem enough of a challenge to someone who generally doesn’t do much of either I decided to throw myself a curve and paint on a pre-painted background. I only do this when I am reusing a canvas and then I don’t make the existing background part of the new painting – I paint over it.
I think that there is a progression in the work from the day I started with A Girl and Her Curls. Here I am much more comfortable letting the background show through the new layers of paint and using it as part of the composition. Maybe I let the background dominate too much – but really the only thing I was interested in was the little boy’s face, hands and gesture. I really wasn’t interested in his shirt for this painting. Can you tell :)?