If It Is Written

Understanding as I do that no artist ever completely satisfied with his own work, there is for every artist the danger of over-working the canvas. Overcoming that urge is one of the clearest signs of an emerging artist. Here it is clearly demonstrated that you have over-come that urge. Which, considering your style, I count all the more impressive.

This piece also very clearly demonstrates the improvements you have made in composition and techniques since you began posting on DeviantART. The depth of field is good, but the use of foreground shadowing to illustrate the odd lighting conditions of a jungle is impressive.

The modelling of the planes of the face and the musculature of the body are masterfully done, your use of color is another masterful touch--warm colors for the character and vegetation, cooler colors for the shadows and stones. And the use of cool colors for articles on the central character's body ties the colors together very neatly.

I like the way you have used flat color in minimalist strokes to represent background vegetation. I also like the way you make use of lack of focus in the middle ground to "tell the story"--rather like Latin grammar uses the words at the two ends of a sentence to stress the important parts.

In all, I would say this piece says about you as an artist: "I have arrived". Biased as I am--you are my favorite artist, after all--but I'd totally hang this piece.