A helping hand

[Mike McCarty]

Mari,

Thanks for the comments, I think your analysis is right on the money. I concentrated on trying to get the color and value and the form got stretched out. The hand is more gnarly than I portrayed. I have a long way to go with this painting and I think I can fix this pretty easily. I did want the hand to be good. I have placed it as a prominent part of the composition. More than the usual supporting cast member.

I have a theory about where I start to paint on a painting. As usual this is not borne out of years of training at the academy in the south of France (or S. Texas). If I first paint the face, and do what I would consider to be my best effort, I tend to rush through the rest. I become less diligent on the other supporting features. But if I start with what I consider to be the least important feature and work my way toward the face I tend to do the best I can on each feature as I progress up the scale of importance. It may be that in my mind I know the challenge is the likeness of the person, the face, and having faced that challenge my energy and concentration begin to wain.

No doubt this thinking comes from being left in the woods as a child and taught to paint by wolves.