A Portrait of Miguel Lucas

Hoodie, watercolor on paper, 12x18

Miguel Lucas turned two in October, and I finally got over my hesitation of doing a portrait of him. He is such a handsome boy and has so many different facets to him, it was hard to imagine capturing just one pose... I knew I would want to make it a detailed portrait, and did not have long stretches of time to devote to a single painting, so I postponed my attempt for a long time... It took many hours and many nights to complete, as predicted. Children portraits are just so difficult to do... so hard to keep the features soft and round, especially in Colorado where washes dry almost instantly.

This was done with M Graham paints, a size 12 and a size 10 kolinsky rounds (one to paint another to soften edges), and a 1 inch flat for the background, on Fabriano Artistico hot press paper. It helped a lot to paint entirely vertical. No masking, no lifting, no tricks, just brushwork. He had a lot of fun watching me paint it, and it is great to have his reaction now that he can speak and share his thoughts.

Now that I got into it, I will probably be doing many more paintings of him... I had better hurry, as his baby brother will make his appearance in January and compete for my attention as a father and as an artist!