Tonal Study

[Thomasin Dewhurst]

Thanks Alex, very much. It was something that just started out of an idea I wasn't going to take seriously - just playing with an image of a head and with chiaroscuro in order to put a patina on the canvas for the real painting, but then it just started to work so well and sort of painted itself (which is a lot like watercolours). I was trying to get a feeling of atmosphere and spatial depth. The green in the background was the thing that harmonized the figure with the surrounding dark. It wasn't immediately obvious, and I worked the background with browns and oranges until I suddenly felt that green would work much better. Things don't usually go this easily for me at all, so this is like is a welcome little holiday for me. (I bet I won't be able to do it again.)

[Carlos Ygoa]

Thomasin,

When things go this easy on the easel and the results are this good, it only shows that the author has mastery and focus. I

[Ilaria Rosselli Del Turco]

Thomasin, I find very interesting how the sharpest parts of the image are the closer to us (nose and mouth).
This adds to the effect of the image emerging from the indistinct background, but in a sense also opens the space to infinity: we know where the prominent features are situated in space (almost in the living space of the viewer) and we don't know how deep the space is inside the picture
Very captivating
Ilaria