"Go To Bed" contemporary figurative painting

Somebody back talked their momma at the dinner table and got sent to bed. 

I was working from a snapshot of my nephew Davis, but while I was playing with the flesh tones, I discovered a pouting face that had been crying, and I started visualizing the whole story of that scene instead of the portrait I had started painting. For some reason, I think I spend as much time thinking about the story of the image as I do the image itself. Maybe that's a poor confession from someone trying to become a fine artist, but I think it's a fair assessment of what I think the purpose of my art is. My pictures tell stories.  To me, if they don't capture emotion or some element of narrative, they are a waste of time.

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 Website and images copyright 2004 Joe Moorman.  Not to be reproduced without express permission.