Today’s watercolor experiment:

I continue to be inspired by the portraits of Alexej Jawlensky. I love his simplification of the shapes of the heads he portrays and the color patches that he applied to emphasize features of his subjects.

Today I painted a rendition of a photograph I took of my brother Mike at his group home. Mike is autistic, low functioning and nonverbal. I took the photo quickly to capture the moment. I had never seen him display sadness before (see I Really Have to Dig Out My Journals). I retrieved some of Mom and Dad’s comment about Mike’s emotions in my post: Annotated Portrait, July 1, 2013.

First Time I Saw Mike Sad

I tried to capture this emotion in the watercolor portrait below:

Crying Mike
12″x9″ 140# Cold Pressed Watercolor Block

I did not quite capture the graininess of the photograph, nor the fullness of the tears in his left eye. However, I captured that eye looking directly at me. I craved attention from Mike, and cherish any evidence that he may have, even if it is in retrospect.