Don MacFadyen (2)

Joy painted her husband Don a few times, the first being the fifth painting she ever did. This one painted when he was 70 has a light touch in colouring and composition. The hair, eyes, and eyebrows are just dark enough to bring your eye to the central position of the sitter. The arms and shoulders also create an arc intersected by the head, another way of bringing one to the sitter. As the artist translates the three-dimensional world into the flatness and two dimensions of the canvas these design features become a challenge as one only gets one chance at success. As we have found in all of Joy’s portraits the colouring is a point of contemplation and one can admire that here with surrounding colours in all areas are an an echo of the colours in the argyle sweater.