Portrait Artist Forum - My most successful attempt at a White person

Judson, I agree your work is improving. I love the composition--very dynamic! The red hair and purple dress are really exciting together. I also think you have done a fine job with the skin tones. I've found that I use pretty much the same colors when painting different skin colors, just in different proportions and with more or less white paint.

The problems I see are mainly in the modeling of anatomical contours with light and shadow. Her body is generally in proportion., but take a look at the shadows in her neck area. There is no indication of the symmetry we expect to see. Instead, it appears as if the center of her collarbone is off to the side and that her windpipe is shoved cruelly over and is about to protrude from the side of her neck. I suspect that there were some interesting shadow patterns going on that you were trying to capture, but you have to keep in mind what is going on beneath the surface of her skin while you are painting these shadows. In other words, not just painting what you see, but switching back and forth between that, and painting what you know is there, just to check yourself. It might help to draw a mental line down the center of her chest to see whether you are capturing her symmetry accurately. What does this have to do with drawing skills? Just practicing drawing nudes, lots and lots of them, makes you automatically look for the anatomical features, and notice when you haven't got them correct.