Me at ten

[Mike McCarty]

Lisa,

I'm afraid that forehead never went away, but I'd like to think that the ears have settled down a bit. Maybe my head just swelled out to meet them. Either way it's all still original equipment, patch, patch, patch.

And speaking of original equipment, I wish I had my 1968 Triumph TR6 motorcycle back, I bought it new for $1250. And I wish I had my '57 Chevy back also, Ah me.

As you and Mike mentioned, the eyes are too resolved for the rest. I think I can make these changes pretty easily. I'll look at the other things you mentioned as well.

Steven,

Those are all concept cars from 1963. As for Bo, I was thinking that she and I shared at least one thing, she was a 10 and I, well, I was just ten. I tried to delete that heading but couldn't figure out how. Lately I've been trying to think of what Nicole Kidman and I could share. She's not returning my calls.

I'm going to print out your comments and review them. Thanks for the effort.

[Linda Brandon]

This post was delayed due to the unsuccessful search for a photo of James Dean on a motorcycle.

I like the idea behind black and white oils that at first glance look like a charcoal drawing. This would solve some of my own concerns about making drawings look more like paintings. I'm just wondering if you could thin down those darks with medium and introduce transparent glazes.

Good work, Mike, as always!

[Mike McCarty]

The Child is Father to the Man

Linda,

This sounds like that back to the future thing. These concepts keep me constantly confused along with black holes, Micronesia and women.

About transparent glazing, I think the black can be thined down and glazed over the opaque white. Although as I recall my approach, with very few exceptions, led me to always have some opaque white in the mixture. Then the transparency starts to diminish pretty quickly.

I actually started this to be only in sienna but very early switched to black. I have received a lot of positive reaction to this at my studio. I'm thinking of offering this as a less expensive alternative to oil color. It was certainly less difficult and time consuming for me. I certainly look forward to working from my own reference. I really don't like the way the light has modeled the face in this photo.

As for James Dean, my search came up with this ...