New mother and son
 

I started this one last night and worked way too late. I'm trying William Whitaker's Nupastel technique, but got carried away (again) and added more colors. I think I have to do much more blending and lightening of mom and son's face and skin tones. Now I'm wondering if I should go back to all earth tones ( the browns and reds) ditch the gold tones in her sweater and use soft beige in the baby's garment.

This is my step-daughter Alice and her new son JD. I took this photo when he was 2 weeks old. I'd like this to be an heirloom for my husband so am willing to start over if neccessary. Your guidance will be sincerely appreciated.

Jean

Couldn't keep my hands off it
 

As I walked by this painting I fully intended to leave it alone for a while. Haha, couldn't do it. Here's where I'm going with it. It's 24 x 17 inches, Canson Mitientes in sand.

Jean

Jean,

I would work on the mom's hand and make sure that
the fingers are anatomically correct (the ring finger and pinky in particular looks funky), before building them up further through the use of color.

Study your own hand first and observe how the nuckles are slightly wider and how the fingers taper as they get closer to the fingertips. Fingers that are stretched still have little bumps and protrusions that will reflect or cast slight shadows.

Hands can be a challenge, but they can add so much to a painting, when successfully rendered. Have fun!

Ready to stop now
 

Well, done but for any suggestions you may have.

Jean

Close up
 

Jeremiah Deacon (JD), my new grandson.

Close up
 

Alice

Jean,

The hand and fingers look so much better now. I really like the closeup of Alice. She looks so angelic and reminds me of Italian madonna painting.

Italian Madonna
 

Hi Enzie,

Alice has that very classic Greek, Italian look of the old Masters. Her heritage is Portuguese/Welsh, but has none of her father's Welsh look. It took a while to get the hand right, it had to look correct anatomically and still be supporting the baby gracefully. I had to change it some from the actual pose cause it just didn't look right as you noticed.

I can see already that I need to work more on JD's frenulum (under the nose). It's crooked.

I couldn't seem to stay with all conte in red tones. So decided to limit the pallette to all earth tones, very soft. Did some new things on this that were really fun. Michael, I used your stiff dry brush technique for blending. It was really painting with pastel! Thanks. I also used William Whitaker's kneaded eraser trick and actually felt like I was drawing with it. I had two brand new ones, never used one before. So, a gratifying experience all around. Thank, you Cynthia, for this Forum.

Jean

You're welcome, Jean!

Reference photo
 

Here's my reference. I had converted it to black and white to work on values, now I don't know how to change it back. Oh well, I changed a lot of colors anyway because of the monochromatic theme.

Jean