Lukas Lister-Stevens

Lukas is, by far, the youngest farmer in my Field to Canvas series, and I was very happy to be able to include him and show the next generation of vegetable growers. Lukas considers Vicki Emlaw (daughter of George) and her husband, Tim Noxon (a couple that is also in this series), his mentors and has conveyed that enthusiasm into Back 40 Veg, creating, along with his brothers, a thriving operation that is an inspiration to us all.

Barely a teen, he's already been farming for 5 years and grows a wide variety of produce: heirloom tomatoes, heirloom beets, heirloom carrots, mixed lettuce, squash, pumpkins, spinach, parsnips, and lots of other garden veggies.

Addressing his youth in painting, however, created a technical challenge for me. Lukas was the second-last portrait I painted and came directly after the oldest farmer in the series in which I employed a lot of patchiness to great effect, denoting great age, so controlling the brush to give me smoothness and lots of blending for Lukas was a necessity, and I think it worked out well. Also, the photo I took as reference had a very shallow depth-of-field (my preference) so the background was rendered in an impressionistic way to appear out of focus, compared to Lukas.

The "out of focus" barn in the background looks like an impressionistic painting, but serves to push Lukas into the foreground.

Another area of abstraction that could be a painting in itself.

Check out his great website by clicking
RIGHT HERE.

UPDATE: This painting is now sold.

For the full version of this painting, click HERE.

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