A Smile for A Cure

A Smile for A Cure

A Commissioned Portrait

Oil Painting on Canvas

9.5 X 16

May 2014



This is an oil painting I made as a gift to my friend, Dr. Curie Sarmiento.  She was a bubbly, strong, and sweet person.  She loves helping and she is quite good natured.  

When I was working on this portraiture, I was afraid not being able to capture her likeness.  But her smile is endearing.  It took me a lot of time fixing and finalizing this painting.  Also, since its medium is oil paint, it took long before it dried well.  The good thing about using oil is its vibrancy.  The colors don't change much when it dried.  

In doing oil painting, be sure not to work inside your room.  There should be air flowing in your work area because the smell may be harmful to your health.  There are mediums that you can use to speed up the process of drying.  I don't like turpentine because of its smell and it turns the oil paint brittle.  I use Winsor and Newton Liquin fast dry.  It is a little costly but it's worth it.

For the pigment, I like Winsor and Newton, or Reeves.  But sometimes I ran out of supplies.  So I also resort to Monte Marte and Maries.  I haven't explored all pigment types yet.  But I noticed that Maries quality is not as smooth as that of Reeves.  Maybe this is one that I'll explore in the future.

Can you give me advise as to what paint pigment to use?

Child at Play Series

Child at Play 2

Oil Pastel on Paper

8.5 X 14

March 13, 2013

Have you experienced playing in the province? I did. Children living in rural area are quite lucky to have a large playground and having so much space and healthy air to breath.  It was really fun and carefree during those days.  Now, we live in a city and there's so much concrete around our community.  We barely see fruit trees.  There are no streams to bath on with friends.  We can't even run and play under the rain anymore.  Those were the days.

My friend photographer shared a photo of a very young student playing with ropes tied on a tree.  This painting is actually copied from an original photo taken by Mr. Dom Meily of Photoville.  I asked him if I can use his material to paint this scene.

I hope I was able to capture the fun and joy that the kid felt while he's playing.  He was close to nature and though alone, he seems happy enough on his own.  I hope you too enjoyed this scene.

Please comment if there's anything that I need to improve in this work.