20 x 16", oil on linen, 2014.
This painting was done on Valentine's Day. The red background and direct gaze of the model serve to intimate the holiday of romance. This was my second time to complete a painting of Alex, who also modeled for the painting entitled “Study.”
At the 2014 Portrait Society of America’s Annual Conference in Washington DC, this painting was critiqued before an audience of 800 contemporaries by the much-admired, master artist Everett Raymond Kinstler.
He said, “Now this is very strong. It’s very honest, It’s very direct. I think it’s a very successful painting. . . . Overall this is a top painting." He continued, "I love the feeling of it. It has the feeling of being painted from life, and I think the lovely quality of that blue eye is so intelligent and so well felt, [s]he’s told a story, and look how the tone in the background makes that head register. Wow!”