[Mike McCarty]

Michele,

Your comments are very flattering. Frankly this type of image excites me and intimidates me all at once. I am reminded of what our buddy Marvin Mattelson said: "a successful portrait is a person's likeness trapped inside a work of art." Or something close to that.

Denise,

Thanks for looking and offering your opinion.

To anyone,

There is a question inside me and I am having a hard time articulating it, even to myself. It has to do with photos like this. It is mostly why I posted this photo, in hopes that someone could shake the question from me. And then of course answer it. Not bad huh? Tell me what my question is, then answer it!

A photo can show light or shadow or objects in ways which, for a photo, are routinely believable. We tend to accept a photo (generally speaking) as an accurate recording of the scene. We look at the girl's chest, we do a quick mental evaluation, and we say... that's light coming through the leaves. The colors of green and mauve and gold are reflections of those things around her. We place the burden on ourselves to figure it out because we first believe that the photo recorded it correctly.

Then we get to our painting. I believe that there is a completly different mental dynamic that we employ when we view a painting. A painting, by definition, is a contrivance. The artist chose to include or to exclude. The burden is switched from the viewer and placed onto the artist. Instead of the viewer "figuring it out" we now have the artist "explaining it." When we attempt a painting of this type we really have to be "dead on" with these effects. A much greater burden, a much greater reward if we get it right. There is a question somewhere in the above.

I think sometimes that my photo images drag me way ahead of my painting abilities. Maybe that's a good thing, I don't know.