First kiss

Introducing a new subject here on the site. Please welcome Tara Âû Jean, a friend here in Chicago. She is primarily a photographer, with a strong eye for composition, and also a beautiful woman. She got excited when she saw my Color notes piece, and has given me a bunch of reference photos to use. This picture is from the birth of her daughter, Fiona. I’m excited to show you more of both of them.

I was trying to build on the painting skills of the last few pictures. Broader strokes, less blending, simpler shapes. In parts I was able to maintain that discipline, but in others I wound up going back to fine detail and blending. I just can’t make myself gloss over the minutiae of facial features. I obsessed in particular over Fiona’s ear.

Let’s talk about that ear for a minute! Getting the shapes right was a surprising challenge. But much harder, I found, was getting the color to read. The top ridge, where you can see light shining through the skin, was a special challenge. If it’s not just the right shade of red, the brain rejects it. That took many iterations, and I simply could not get acceptable results with the chunky brush I was trying to apply to the whole work.

In the end, I think this work strikes a nice balance. There’s fine detail where I care about it — the faces and that tiny fist — and the rest has a kind of dream-like hazy quality to it.