New Paintings

 I think I'm at a place where I can say that I'm done with this painting.  I just had it reviewed by a faculty member of the New York Studio School this week and he liked the juxtaposition of portrait vs. still life in the background.  He also gave me an interesting comment that it seemed the face was done more in the style of an illustrator and the rest by a painter.  I think that is mostly because the background was left alone after 1 coat with large bristle brushes, while the face got a little more "noodled" in order to go back and get the colors I wanted with smaller brushes and thus some looseness got painted over.  I'm trying to get my paintings to a place where I can paint the entire image in just 1 pass without any glazing or second coats to get the colors and values that I want.

This painting of Megan and Atticus with Nibs is an example of everything getting painted in the first coat.    Some things to me look like they could be rendered with a little more form, but I'm afraid of losing the freshness of my strokes, so it's a hard call. I love the way the cat turned out.