Alfie
Description
Alfie my three-year-old son playing in the garden of my parents´ house in Italy on a July evening.
He and my six-year-old daughter Maia were climbing upon the blue painted posts of the summer house veranda.
In this painting, Alfie has just managed to reach the top bar, and he is exceedingly pleased with his achievement.
I use watercolour to capture these fleeting moments because its lightness and transparency feels appropriate for depicting the joy and continual motion of children.
I do use photographs as source material when painting children playing, and when I paint the picture, I do so within an hour, so that the flow and grace of their play is mirrored by the artistic process. I also try to use minimal brushstrokes, overlapping as scarcely as possible, and leaving space for the paper, and their luminosity to shine through.