Customer Photo Ref
 

A customer wants a portrait done with this photo in graphite. Her children are four years older now. This is her favorite pic of her kids and she admits it is cropped poorly, but she loves the light on their faces.

I am worried that the light and shadow are too severe on the boy. Could I make it less contrasty and still make it work? I thought I would finish the heads like Ruben's Head of a Boy, just neck and suggestion of shoulders???

Any input, ANY...would be appreciated. I told her I would have to play with some sketching before I could assure her this ref is useable.

Thank you
Pat

Hi Patricia,
My initial suggestion is that you will need more space around the heads.
Then I think that you could lower the light value on the boys head related to the girl. This would be to support the perspective in the motive as it is.

I think that the "drawing" in the reference is varied and OK. So you need to get the, almost missing tones in the light areas of the faces to come forward. This may not be easy, but try to anyway.

This for a start.

Allan

Patricia,

Without nit picking the photo, what strikes me is that you could give these kids much more space, and accentuate two basic lines. The one vertical line created by her back and the almost horizontal line of his left shoulder. Let these lines tail to nothing keeping them quick and spontaneous. You could practice their placement many times to get the right angle and distance. Still keeping space from ends to the edge. And keep the girls right side very brief.

Try giving the whole thing much more air around the sides than you might think.

I would do very brief sketches to locate the images in this new space. I think this placement could bring a new found importance to the kids. Much more than the the current composition. It may be that the lines I suggest don't work to your benefit and others will emerge. These sketches will identify that.

My two bits.

Allan,

We had simultaneous postage.

Mike.

Two souls, one thought. :santa:

Allan

Thank you Mike and Allan,

I appreciate your input. It is encouraging to read as I am still so inexperienced.

I will play with sketches. I already have done a few and instinctively put more space around them- it makes them actually look closer and more "chummy", which I think warms up the composition. But I was at a loss as to what to do with them, below the neck. I will try your suggestions Mike. I have been looking at masterworks of children till my eyes are blurry. I guess now it's time to play and see what happens.

Have a good weekend!

I would pass on this one. Sweet faces, awful lighting. What a viewer will find acceptable in a photo will often just look "off" in a painting or drawing.

There is no usable color information to go by, the cast shadows are weird, the details in the lower left side of the girl's face are almost completely lost in the light, etc.

I'd say thanks but no thanks and use your time to create wonderful portraits that you will be proud of for decades.

I would go with Michele on this one. The only reason for using this photo is if the children, had met with, God forbid, some unfortunate fate and this was all she had to remember them by, and she lived in Guam, so nobody local would ever associate you with it.

One of the arts of portraiture is convincing the client of your vision. The children must be quite young still, so a portrait them as they are today would still be beautiful.
If they are still cute, take their picture anyway, from your own point of view. Do it as a portrait sample for yourself. Do not let the mother have any input, just tell her, her kids are so beautiful you would like to paint them and you will give her a PRINT. Who knows, the mother may like it, buy that and you would have a better sample and maybe some money to boot.

One of my portrait samples sits in the entrance of a beautiful Newport home. It was not commissioned by the owner, but she saw it in a gallery and purchased it.

I think you did say this was to be a pencil drawing. If that's the case you should eliminate the color right away.

If I "had" to do this, this would be the best reference I could create from this photo. No doubt it has a lot of limitations. And I don't know what you do with her mouth. You would surely have to go beyond what is given to you here. This puts a lot of pressure on you to create.

This is why I would create as much space as I could. When you are staring at this with the sides so closed in you tend to focus on all those shortcomings, if it were in a broader field with a stronger composition I think it could help, not cure, those limitations.

I'm not trying to talk you into this, I just enjoy the puzzle.

Best case would be to lose this and do them currently as was pointed out by my two heroines above.

Hi Pat,

I agree that this is an image that needs to remain a treasured photograph. I like Sharon's idea a great deal.

Good luck!

Pat,

On one of your replies you wished you had one of Mike's beautiful pictures to work from. Review his photos and methods so you will have something to work on that inspires you.