Mariah for Critique
 

Well, here goes

A lovely painting! Can you post a closeup of her face, or perhaps a higher resolution image? There seems to be some distortion or pixellation in the shape of the eye on our left. I'm not sure if that's the image file or the painting.

I wonder if a less harsh background color might be more flattering also, something softer in tone and with some modulation perhaps?

Glad you saw the pixellation, too, Michele. I was trying to make it resolve and wondered whether it was just my eyes - or my monitor.

This is indeed a lovely portrait, Stacey. Your rendering of the skin tones and the texture of the dress are excellent, and the hair is well done, too. I'd love to see a closeup of the face. Her parents will be thrilled, I'm sure. What a special present! I agree with Michele that a softer backdrop would be nice, but it didn't occur to me until she mentioned it.

Thanks for your comments Michele and Leslie. I'll have to go back and resize the picture from my tiff file - when I resized the jpeg it got fuzzy, hence the pixelation around that eye (it doesn't look like that in real life!). I'll post a new one tonight when I have access to my original files.

Now that you've pointed it out, I agree that the background does seem too harsh. I confess I was in a hurry and didn't want to give it much thought - I'll have to rethink what would look best :bewildere

Before you resize the picture you can try to 'soften' it first. Sometimes that works better.

Hi Stacey,

You might consider losing the edge of her hair on (our) upper left corner, into the dark background, then finding it again with a softer edge as it gets lighter. Also, I'm not sure if the position of her right index finger looks (?odd). Otherwise, a lovely portrait.

Best Wishes,

I really like this, it's very sweet.
A softer background would look nice, but I do not mind the black either.

Okay, here's a sharper (hopefully) closeup.

Her right index finger does look a bit strange. I'll have to take a closer look at that - it's in a awkward position to begin with, unfortunately!

I'll bet you the parents are not going to mind that finger one jot. Or the background, or anything else. If you're new to this, I think you should sit around and pat yourself on the back until your arm's sore, because it's lovely.

What are you aiming for? Personality, likeness, staying power, and a communicating gesture to last for years. Well, you're successful. Yippee!

If you're aiming to be competitive in a juried show, there are other things mentioned here that would impress jurors, and you might want to do them. But you said this was a relatively virgin run, and I would say move on before you wrack your brains trying to second guess a successful image.

I don't know if this is a popular opinion or not, but speaking as a self-taught/self-teaching painter, there are lessons in every successful painting, and you can't learn them all in just one go. I'm sure this was educational and I can't wait to see what comes next! Good job!

It is a beautiful painting overall. There are problems with the shapes in the eyes, though, that are apparent now that you've posted the clearer image. This is especially the case with the eye on our left.

Care needs to be taken that irises and pupils are perfectly round, and that the pupils are absolutely centered in the irises, which they are not.