Portrait Artist Forum - Girl from Darfur

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Quote:

Originally Posted by Julie Deane

I like the design and the colors, Enzie. I agree with the others that the face's drawing needs a recheck. That's a great hand, however!

All the building details in the background, while interesting, are a bit distracting. What about darkening them (or maybe just the roof) a few values so that the red of the dress and the face "pop" more?

If you darken the light value in the front post, which I feel is fighting for attention with the face, you will have achieved one front area (girl and post) and one background (building).Right now there are three areas (post/girl/background), and I think the post is winning.

Enzie,
I agree with Julie, you would want to emphasize the red dress and the light on the figure. I have fiddled a little in photo shop to illustrate.

I left the studio for the day and with a refreshed outlook sat back down at the computer in the late afternoon. I took your recommendations into consideration and played around one more time in Photoshop. Then I took up the brush again!

As soon as this painting is fairly dry to take a decent photo, I will show you what I did. Misha and Allan, thank you both for giving me that extra nudge!

I am running out of time though and need to stop after this. Once they give me the details where to ship this for the auction it has to be fairly dry to make the trip.

Thanks again everyone! ;)