"Monichka" 30x30

[Alexandra Tyng]

Tony,

Beautiful portrait! As usual I admire the way you heighten the values towards the face (or I guess you could say lower them towards the rest of the body including the hands) to achieve a finely-tuned focus.

Her face is really interesting! I often see paintings of beautiful women that do not interest me, and I suspect it's the way they are painted, i.e. viewed by the artist. But you have put something in this that catches the viewer's attention. That one heavy-lidded eye is slightly, intriguingly, wierd, yet her other eye (in the shadows!) is alert. Her nose is crisply painted, assertive but not overworked. Her lips are softly mobile, about to speak or change expression. All this adds up to a unique face that is hard to forget. I think these nuances come through the brush straight from the artist's intuitive feelings about the subject.

[Marina Dieul]

Captivating!

[Cindy Procious]

Tony, I always love to see your work - you say so much with an economy of beautiful brushstrokes.

Can you speak about the pose? She conveys a sense of tension, as though she's getting ready to get up, or do something - was that deliberate?

[Christy Talbott]

I agree with Cindy. It looks as if she wants to move on.. There's a story there, a mystery.

I like it!

[Michele Rushworth]

An author could write a whole book around this painting, this character. A lovely painting, and I agree, there's a story there, a mystery.