Jon, 16" x 12", oil on linen

One of the fun things about painting Jon was to capture the vibrancy of his warm skin tone without being distracted by the darker tone of his face. His posing in bright blue shirt and in front of blue background intensified the warmth of his face further. But at the same time, I decided to vignette his shirt so that it won't draw too much attention to it or clash with his face above.

I generally don't like to use store-bought canvases. Instead, I prefer to either prime the canvas or board myself, or stretch a canvas of my choice. A few weeks ago I bought a Belgian linen canvas board from a store just to give it a try, and I decided to use it to paint Jon. It turned out that this particular brand was, though not heavily textured, too 'scratchy' on the surface. And I didn't care for it much.