It's my Teddy!
 

I miss so much of that moment. So I brought him back here. This is my younger son was 1and 1/2 years old. Now he is 22. I think his loving expression will stay within me forever.

24x36, oil on canvas.

Any advise and comments are welcome! Thank you for looking.

Piety

Hi Piety,

As I told you in person, I think this is an extraordinary painting. A subject matter like this could so easily have been corny or overly sentimental, yet it is not! Instead, there is something slightly edgy and unusual about it, maybe because of the way it is painted (brushstrokes, colors), or the way it is placed on the canvas, or because of the drawing on the wall behind him. You've somehow used your emotion for your son to create ART. Very impressive.

Alex

Thank you very much, Alex! I was encouraged by your thoughts and words. Especially when you said "to create ART", it makes me more relaxed.

When I'm painting someone from photographs, I try not to be copying. So I was scribbling on the wall(background) to stretch out his world and my art world also. This painting still shows that it's from a photo image. But my big hug for my son is in there!!

Piety

Hi Piety-

I am really enjoying the emotional qualities in your work. Its a gift of painting that we (and others) can again taste moments that are long gone.

I was inspired by your portrait of your mother to do a portrait of my own, who passed away last year. As I'm starting it, I have the pleasure of feeling her warm smile again. Thanks for the inspiration.

best,
Andrea

Hi, Andrea.

Really good to hear that my painting could affect other people. And also I'm sorry to hear that your mom passed away last year. But you have a gift of painting as you said...

"Its a gift of painting that we (and others) can again taste moments that are long gone. ..... I have the pleasure of feeling her warm smile again. "

Thanks,

Piety

Piety, sweet sweet painting. My son is 20 and back this weekend from college - it's our Thanksgiving. I did a painting of him the very first time he sat up on his own. Seeing your painting made me want to look at the one I did so long ago. Couldn't find it, but I will look again tomorrow. See what you can do with your art?! Janet

Hi Piety--

A further thought about your project here, which seems to be to be about re-experiencing the little boy your son once was...

What can make a painting recall and/or communicate the smell and feel of something so much more than a photo--even when that painting is done with photos as source material? (given that it is as well imagined and executed such as your painting is, and not merely copied.) There's more information and richness of color possible, as well as texture, but maybe more importantly--there's also the handmade quality itself--the implicit time, care and tenderness necessary to create the image in oils on canvas. The intimacy of consciously noticing and recording each curve and fold.

As a kid at the museum, I remember the wonder of looking at portraits hundreds of years old (especially Rembrandt and Velasquez) and feeling the encounter between the artist and his subject as if it were happening at that very moment.

Hi, Janet.
Did you find the painting of your son yet? What's going on here? Did I let people busy to look for their precious family again? Thank you, Janet.

What a great instruction, Andrea! You are telling all about this kind of painting. Thank you for your beautiful explanation.

Piety