Previous Works No. 2 - A Moment of Playfulness and Happiness

           

            This painting of  happy and laughing kids was done very early on when I was just starting to experiment with soft pastels. In the past I have  experimented a little bit with oil pastels but did not develop a liking for it because of the difficulty of blending colours and less vibrant pigments. So when I first got to use soft pastels (and realize that I don't need to wash paint brushes as I do when I use oil paints) and saw how vibrant and bright the colours can be, I was hooked. I knew soft pastels will be one of my preferred media. 

            Doing portraits is both  challenging and fun.  The key is to get  the facial  expression right, and to render and portray the subject in an artist's  own way and ( personally) the portrait not ending up looking like just another photograph  of the subject. This painting shows the general likeness of the subjects, and  the hearty smiles on their cute happy faces. Seeing this  image takes me back to my childhood back in the Philippines, when  having fun meant having a swim in the river,  climbing trees and running around as opposed to today's kids' fascination with video games and technology. Those were the days!

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Many thanks to my good friend Eric Villaroman for letting me use one of his beautiful photographs as basis for this painting. Keep snapping great looking pictures!