No, I don't think I took you the wrong way. I meant ouch for those others! Don't worry, I knew you were saying something nice. I shoulda used a smilie.

Janet -

I believe I ordered the reducing lens online, either from Jerry's Artarama or www.aswexpress.com.

In just one or two years you will look back at your painting, look at your current ones and see how far you've come. The feedback here shows that the members of this forum believe in you.

We all have to put in our time and paint our miles of canvases.

Wow, Julie, what a sweet thing to say. Thank you. And I will look up that reducing lens and see if I can find something a little more local. Janet

The problem lies in having too great a value range in any given area, as other artists have mentioned. You can really see it with this posterized Photoshop greyscale comparison. The photo, on the left, shows larger simpler areas of dark, medium and light values. The painting, on the right, shows those same areas broken up into too many value changes where they don't exist.

Moving back as you work, using a mirror, or perhaps that reducing gadget may help.

Thanks Michele. I've actually got this painting going again in the WIP. Sort of boring, I suppose, but it's to give people a chance to prevent me making mistakes, rather than giving post-mortems! I'd love your input, and by the way I'm attempting to be very strict with my value this time. Janet

Janet,

I know this is just adding to the pile.

I find this happens to my work when I have been working too exclusively from photographs. There is a tendency to get TOO CLOSE and see each feature individually.

Another problem is that we see each photograph as an opportunity to make a finished product instead of a work of art.

There are times we have to step back to square one and relearn the stuff they all too infrequently did not teach us even in the finest of art schools; mainly how to make form.

I would get the book, "The Practice and Science of Drawing", by Harold Speed, available on this web-site. It goes back to the basics, especially working in black and white before attempting form.

There is another thread on the Bargue method on this site. That is working again sight-size in monochrome from classcal forms.

These are invaluable tools in the foundation of really fine figurative work.

If you are serious about becoming a portrait artist, endlessly reproducing photographs is not the way to go. The competition is stiff and numerous. The best gift you can give yourself is a good foundation.

Sharon,

Everything you said is true, and I've only just gotten to the point where I can really appreciate it's meaning for me right now. I've had a sneaking feeling since the New Year that in order to go forward, I will have to go back first. Thank you, Janet

Janet,

I am trying to save you the time I wasted following the very same path. It is not a step backward, but a step forward.

That's a much better way of putting it!