Shauna
 

This painting is 40" x 27". Let the "slings and arrows" fly!

Here's a closeup:

No slings and arrows here Michele, this a very nice piece, particularly the lighting. Excellent job with the hands and flowers, also the handling of the edges.

The only thing that caught my eye rather quickly is her left eye. I checked your resource photo and it appears that you have the position of her eye "dead on", but could it be the heavy dark eyes and eyelash against the extreme highlights on that side of her face? Could it be pushed back a bit?

Other than that, this is one of my favorites, maybe the favorite, of yours.

Lovely!

Michelle,

That's one beautiful painting.

I suppose you posted it so that nardewells like myself could nitpick it, so here's a couple.

I believe the vase would be even more beautiful if you gave it some darker values on our left, the back side of the light. I don't think the light would wrap around it so totally.

At the top of the subject's left shoulder as the line travels up towards the neck... in your reference the shoulder is visible behind the necklace, higher on the neck. A small matter, and one you may have calculated, but it does give a slightly off-balance weight to the shoulder-neck relationship on that side.

Beautiful painting.

Michele, when I saw your post I thought you had just gone and posted the reference photo. You show-off! This is a beautiful painting, my favorite of yours so far.

The only possible thing to do is to nit-pick, as pointed out by previous posters. I agree with Mike Dodson: I think the camera has overexposed the lights in your reference photo and blown out that eye closest to the window. In "real life" you should be able to locate the pink rim of the lower lid, reddish eye corners, highlights and the like.

Beautiful soft edges and I love the pearl!

Hi Michele,

This is a beautiful painting and I especially like the soft atmosphere you have created. It's like the sunlight is slowly filtering into the room.

All I can add besides the eye issue that has already been pointed out, is that I would anchor the vase with a cast shadow. If this is an accurate representation of the original, then the vase seems to float next to her.

Michele,

Beautiful! I thought that candelabra would really take away from the girl when I saw the references, but you did a fantastic job.

Background
 

I think the background stuff is wonderfully done. I too want to understand why the vase is not dark. There are many nice touches like the straps.

Hi Michele,

Beautiful painting of a beautiful young woman! I was going to say that there is a funny dark spot just above the tip of her nose, and when I went and looked at the photos I saw that the spot is there as well. I guess there is a spot of pigmentation there, but I never noticed it when you posted the photos. I think the way the light strikes the rose leaves is just perfect. There are too many good things about this painting to list them all. Any manipulations I might suggest could only be done from a direct viewing of the painting. On my monitor it looks perfect. The clients are going to be very pleased!

Michele - Gorgeous! :thumbsup:

I also thought I was still looking at the reference photo when I first pulled this up. The likeness is remarkable!

This may be a stylistic choice on your part, but as I looked at her a bit longer, her neck seemed a bit long to me - maybe the collar bones are a little low, giving that impression? (using the distance from the corner of her eye to the crease of her mouth as a reference...)