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Julie, Thomasin--thank you both!
I agree that, once you've been in a canoe in the wilderness (or national park or wherever you can get away from civilization), there is this experience you never forget. There's a feeling of being part of nature and being awed by it, of being in control of where you are going and yet not knowing what you will encounter around the next bend. I wanted the three girls' posture and actions to show all these feelings.
Thanks for your comments about brushwork, unity of parts, etc. I've been really conscious of these things in landscapes as I become more conscious of them in portraits. It seems the puzzle of all the different brushstrokes has to be just right. Thick, thin, wide or narrow, hard- or soft-edged, certain colors next to other colors--all this has to be just right for everything to be part of the same puzzle. The illusion is a result of this abstract problem, but there is a stage of working out the problem in the abstract that happens independently from the illusion. In other words, you have to be able to enlarge a little section of the painting and look at it and be satisfied that it "works."
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Threaded Mode
