Steve

[Garth Herrick]

Dear Alex,

I have been privileged by you to preview this wonder in progress. I have been to this room, introduced to your husband, and can assert this representation is the verity of Steve. It's perfect. I want to reach in and touch the train and pet your cat. Within this canvas, there is a believable sense of atmosphere, depth, and presence to everything lovingly rendered. Well done!

Something about this portrait reminds me of the engaging qualities of Charles Wilson Peale's "Staircase Group", of 1795, in the Philadelphia Museum of Art. It's a favorite trompe l'oeil example of a portrait.

Garth

[Claudemir Bonfim]

What a beautiful portrait Alex.
I like the brush strokes very much, not only this, the lighting, the colors and I love the way you managed the greys and blues.
Congrats.

[Linda Brandon]

Alex, I love the fresh, painterly, modern feel of this painting. I really like the concept of putting portrait subjects in amidst their "stuff" and you've done this very well here. The gaze of the cat is a nice touch compositionally, too.

[Lisa Ober]

Alex, it's so great to wake up to something like this! What a fantastic portrait. I am convinced if I ran into your husband at the hardward store for example, I would immediately know him. Do you think a "hello, Steve" from a total stranger would throw him off? Not only is this such a warm and personal portrait, it's a portrait I bet many of us can relate to. You could be my neighbor! I am impressed by the undertaking this was. It is a rather large painting, loaded with interesting details. In spite of those details, your husband remains the focal point. Regardless of where I look in the painting, I end up back at Steve. I'm impressed. Such charm. You really have an incredible gift for introducing us to people through your paintings. Wow.

[Alexandra Tyng]

I'm overwhelmed by all your comments. Thank you so much!

Garth, you really do have a knack of making people float a few feet above the ground. Imagine my painting being compared to a C.W. Peale! Not just any Peale, the very one that I, as a kid, would race to see first when my mother took me to the art museum! It remains one of my favorite paintings, not just because it looks so real, and has an interesting story, and has steps attached to it, but also because the boys look so nice and attractive and friendly, like you want to (and could actually) talk to them.

Bonfim, you mentioned all the things--brushstrokes, lighting, color--that I've been working so hard on for the past few years. I can't tell you how much it means to me that you approve! Sometimes I feel as though I work and work on some aspect of my painting and there is no real progress. So thanks!

Linda, that "modern feel" is an interesting thing. To me, it seems that traditional or academic realism defines portraiture more narrowly than the other "branches" of realism. Not that that's bad or anything. But I've always wanted to paint some kind of modern theme with a traditional feeling. Or maybe it's a traditional theme with a modern feeling? I'm all confused. It's the melding of the two that excites me artistically. Thanks for seeing that, because often I feel that both modernists and traditionalists look at my work and think I've missed the boat somehow.

Lisa, yes, Steve is very friendly and easy to talk to. He probably would say hi in the hardware store. I really appreciate what you said. The idea for the portrait came to me after I realized that most full-length portraits are formal. Since I like to push the envelope a little, I decided to try an informal one. Steve was a perfect subject because he never gets dressed up unless he is forced to. If you tell him "nice casual" he wears his better pair of jeans. Then I imagined how an informal portrait might look, and this composition popped into my head.

[Carolyn Ortiz]

Alexandra,

Your work is truly inspiring! Your compositions, the light, the looseness of your strokes, everything is just incredible. I love how you are really bringing portraiture into the present, so people can look back and really see how people were today. I don

[Alexandra Tyng]

Thank you so much, Carolyn! It's funny to think that people 100 years from now might look back and use our portraits as primary sources for what life was like at the turn of the Millenium.