Leaving out the detail

In both these paintings I tried to leave out as much detail as possible as long as possible. Rain I worked on in the studio afterwards. Adrian I was planning on working on but decided to leave it like it is.

Joaquin

Joaquin is an excellent model and I had a lot of fun painting this. I painted over an old portrait I didn't like, so the background is sort of blotchy. At one point, I thought the portrait of Joaquin might pop more if I changed the blotchy white background to some other color...but I'm glad I didn't. The weakest part of this painting is probably the arms, which are somewhat too short for the rest of the figure. However, it isn't too terribly noticable. Overall, I'm happy with this piece.