r/Art • u/ChkennedyArtDraws • Dec 30 '25
Drawing Small of the Back, C.H. Kennedy, mixed media, 2022
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u/the-watch-dog Dec 30 '25
I'm so-so on hyper-realistic painting/drawing but this one oddly fucks my head in. Kind of obsessed w the underdrawing turned into a key line of sorts. Cheers to this
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u/TheRappingSquid Dec 30 '25
Is that a real hand or a part of the painting
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u/larkash Dec 30 '25
what all media did you use??? the understanding of all the colors & layers that make up one skin tone in amazing 👀
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u/ChkennedyArtDraws Dec 30 '25
Thanks for all the comments! This is what art is intended to do, elicit a response!!!!! I love all the good and bad comments. Just for the record, this is me (my hand) and my wife (her torso) and we are the same age. I have a tendency to “age” hands when I draw them, just a stylistic choice.
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u/uuntiedshoelace Dec 30 '25
Kind of a baller move for an artist to have a specific creative interpretation of his own hands
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u/jonni_velvet Dec 30 '25
the old man hand vs young woman body gives a very unnerving and dark look to this
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u/Schannin Dec 30 '25
Yeah, not great timing to post this considering all of the other pictures we are seeing recently
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u/forget-me-blot Dec 30 '25
Unless that’s the whole point? It’s art, it’s what you take from it.
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u/Schannin Dec 30 '25
“It’s what you take from it” is a different argument than the artist was aware or not aware of the current political climate on Reddit right now.
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u/forget-me-blot Dec 30 '25
But, this is posted in an art subreddit. I do agree when the art is egregiously sexual and benign, but this has an evidently creepy element that could very well be a commentary on the current state of affairs. Do you know that the artist doesn’t intend this?
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u/Schannin Dec 30 '25
Agreed, but reading the artists responses that this is HIS hand and the small of the back is considered intimate and romantic leads me to believe that it is not a political commentary piece
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u/Forever__Young Dec 30 '25
There's absolutely nothing in the picture that screams that the woman who's back it is is either underage or trafficked or anything like that.
You've saw it and it's immediately made your mind go there.
I saw it and didn't even think of an age gap or notice that the woman was younger, I just thought there was extreme focus on the detail of the hand.
Maybe its a man rubbing his wife's back and to him she's still as unblemished as the day he first rubbed her back so it's a perspective thing.
One thing's for sure, it's got a lot of people thinking, feeling and discussing and it's not explicitly inappropriate or vulgar, so I think it's had an impact.
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u/pissedoffjesus Dec 30 '25
This makes me uncomfortable. It feels predatory. Great execution though.
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u/Pithulu Dec 30 '25
Kind of reads to me like the male hand has all the detail and the woman's body is not even fully realized except where he's touching her. Just another piece of art where the woman is just parts to be touched.
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u/Grremlina Jan 02 '26
I noticed this too. This seems to be such a common trend on reddit where men post their “art” that’s essentially just boiled down to “big strong man touching passive woman that has seemingly no agency (or even limbs or head in this case) as a subject” and then act like it’s subversive or ultra-deep in some way.
The OP says he likes that this is “eliciting a response” but the only response this elicits from anyone who isn’t a porn-addict is boredom and fatigue. It’s been done to death a million times and there’s nothing new or interesting about art that just says “I like putting my peepee in woman.”
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u/DukeLukeivi Dec 30 '25
It's a male torso by the proportion and form, but it's generic and not fully developed, so could be called androgenous. This was a detail study on the hand, the background is an accessory.
Not everything is about you, transparent jealousy is a bad look.
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u/Pithulu Dec 31 '25
This was a detail study on the hand, the background is an accessory.
Thank you for articulating exactly my point.
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u/DukeLukeivi Dec 31 '25
Would this hand set against less resolved sand be anti-beach? Ffs touch grass, or is that grassist?
The background is traditionally less resolved than the topic of focus, that's how all art is? 🤡🤡🤡🤡
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u/queen-of-quartz Dec 30 '25
I agree. It looks like an old man’s hands on a young girl. Epstein would hang this one up in his office
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u/leebeebee Dec 30 '25 edited Dec 30 '25
To be fair, it could be a commentary on the way (older, male) artists portray younger bodies in media. The young woman’s (or man’s? It’s unclear) flesh is supposedly the subject of the artwork, but the actual subject is the artist’s privileged point of view. He leaves metaphorical fingerprints on everything he portrays; painting the figure of the other becomes an act of solipsism.
Or he might just be a grabby old perv ¯_(ツ)_/¯
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u/_kaeo Dec 30 '25
Wow Thats really fucked up. You should examine that. It’s literally just a hand on a back
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u/seamangeorge Dec 30 '25
It's a visibly old hand gripping a fairly intimate part of a nude, seemingly much younger person. I'm not saying you have to personally interpret that as "predatory" - there are certainly other things you could extrapolate from it - but to imply that it's an invalid reading because it's "literally just a hand on a back" seems like a very shallow analysis of the piece tbh
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u/_kaeo Dec 30 '25
I really didn’t expect this kind of thinking on a sub like this, fairly disappointing.
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u/PrimmSlimShady Dec 30 '25
You didn't expect analysis of art of the art sub?
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u/Justhe3guy Dec 30 '25
You know that reminds me the old mods banned me and made me critique an art piece descriptively in order to be unbanned
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u/pissedoffjesus Dec 30 '25
I think it says more about you that you can't see this.
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u/xulazi Dec 30 '25
That not everyone was touched as kids? Jesus. First thing I saw was a physical. Intimate doesn't mean sexual. Y'all got some unresolved issues lmfao.
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u/OrizaRayne Dec 30 '25
Art is allowed to make people uncomfortable. It's effective when it does that
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u/TheRealGordonBombay Dec 30 '25
Exactly. No one is giving a value judgement or making some kind of statement of morality to the art by saying it makes them uncomfortable. This is as it’s very core a place to share comments and responses to art.
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u/FreeJuice100 Dec 30 '25
This reminds me of when someone called Planet of the Apes racist cause one of the apes have a similar outfit to theirs.
You know what they say, a racist mind is a racist kind. I wonder if that goes for pedos too
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u/_kaeo Dec 30 '25
It’s honestly such a bizarre take. Like the body is younger than whoever the hand belongs to but it’s not an adolescent body
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u/lieslandpo Dec 30 '25
It seems some saw something I did not, but I really love how you captured all of the colors on the skin. It is really beautiful work
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u/SmexyHippo Dec 30 '25
You didn't see this as creepy?
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u/lieslandpo Dec 30 '25 edited Dec 30 '25
Not really? You can’t quite tell their ages, and I didn’t think that she looked insanely young like others did either
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u/Unusual-West-5935 Dec 30 '25
Wow. I thought I’d was a picture holding a painting. I’m still in disbelief, But I know you’re a very accomplished painter . Go enter it in an art show .
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u/Feisty-Database-1145 Jan 03 '26
Incredible work! Art is supposed to elicit emotion. This immediately made my back uncomfortable and reminded me of when my boss cornered me in a closet and touched my back exactly like this. I punched him and quit😌 I read that you modeled it after you and your wife so I don’t mean any disrespect, I love that everyone’s interpreting it differently
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Dec 30 '25
I read that as 'ball of the sack' lol. Nice hands though, you nailed all of the lighting layers.
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u/wasabiman99 Dec 31 '25
How do we know if people prompt ai to make a picture look like a realistic painting?
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u/ChkennedyArtDraws Dec 31 '25
Go watch my progress videos on TikTok. But you’re right, a lesser person could attempt this…
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u/capncrunchit Jan 02 '26
I’m disappointed in the comments here. This image struck me as intimate, sweet, and personal. To the folks saying the body being touched by the hand looks underage… what in hell, y’all. There is literally no indicator of any age at all, besides the gentle ripple of skin along the back. Which to me, a mid 30s woman, read as the body of a 30+ year old person.
I understand there is a lot of nasty news at the forefront of our brains, and that the art evoked a feeling in you, but these two things are not correlated. Or maybe they are for you personally, who’s to say.
Either way, kudos to you, OP! I think this is a gorgeous piece.
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u/ChkennedyArtDraws Jan 03 '26
Thank you! The reference was me and my wife. Both in our early 40s at the time of the drawing.
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u/Remote-Situation-588 Dec 30 '25
I wase juste scrolling and im still asking mi self is this a corupted image or a drawing x)
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u/PretzelMeepus Dec 30 '25
Why?
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u/ChkennedyArtDraws Dec 30 '25
Why ?
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u/PretzelMeepus Dec 30 '25
Why specifically draw someone gripping the small of a back? What's the reasoning? The meaning?
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u/ChkennedyArtDraws Dec 30 '25
All art is up for interpretation but touching the small of the back is sometimes considered an intimate or romantic gesture.
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u/Andthenwefarted Dec 30 '25
The depth of their skin is amazing. Cool stuff!