Three Children With a Red Wagon

I have some friends who have one of the most photogenic wildflower spots in their front yard. People, lots of people, stop and take pictures, sometimes without any people in the shots, sometimes with sweethearts or children or pets sitting among the bluebonnets.

I asked if I could use their yard for a photo shoot, and in return, I would take pictures of their kiddos. This painting is a result of that promise. Momma dressed her girls in beautiful matching dresses and baby brother sat in the red wagon. What fun!

Now, as to the difficulties I discovered as I worked on this painting. First of all, the canvas is 12 inches by 24 inches. The majority of the canvas is landscape and the figures are very tiny. I had no idea that it is exponentially more difficult to capture the essence of a person's features the tinier the figure. Think about it. On a large canvas, say 3 feet by 4 feet, the painter has at least several hundreths of an inch leeway to get a feature "right." When the entire face is only the size of a pinkie fingernail, the variance for error is probalby only nano-specks.

So, I worked and reworked the two girls' faces over and over and over. Mostly, I like the little boy's face. To me, it seems like a good rendering. The girls, however, look fine as figures of random, anonymous children, but they don't look enough like the actual children I photographed.

I developed an immense respect for artists who painted the victorian and earlier miniatures.