Tom lived with his patron in Greenville South Carolina for one year.
While there he painted many works for his patron. This portrait is of the
children of one of his patrons law partners. This painting took the regular
direction of painting such a portrait.
There were three boys in the family and Tom would visit the home
frequently and shoot a roll of film. Slowly the composition came about as he
gathered photos and shared them with the family. Tom takes his time while he
gets to know the children. The middle one shown here became very close to
Tom as he was of the age to spend the most time with the artist as he
worked. Once individual images of the boys were okayed by the parents Tom
started painting. Once the face was still wet Tom would have the child sit
for him so he could put in the fine details and essence of life that is
important for a good portrait. The portrait has each of the boys in white
pants and shirts. The background was their backyard. To get the three boys
into a 30” x 40” canvas Tom placed them in a diagonal composition with the
oldest one in the top left and the youngest one in the bottom right. You can
see pieces of the other two brothers in this detail of the portrait. Tom
entertained the middle son while painting the the background by placing
little bugs and other very small details into the painting.
