[Tom Edgerton]

Beth--

Couple of things, quickly.

I think you threw out the baby with the bathwater on the background. This is by nature a dramatic painting, and thus will have more contrast than a soft, pastoral outdoor view of a little girl with pansies, for example. A very common technique in portraits is to have the darkest part of the background against the lighter part of the face, and vice versa. It's a matter of degree, value-wise. To me, the strongest area of interest is the way the light part of the face cleaves the dark backgound--that line down the extreme left edge (our left) of the face is the graphic pivot on which the composition hangs. Especially since his gaze is directed into the shadow, not the light. Very unusual and effective.

I like the glasses a lot. Adds interest. The drawing in general is more accurate in this version also.

Remember: mass (contain and simplify) the values into a few simple areas. Background, dark part of face, light part of face, etc. are big shapes FIRST, then smaller shapes within these areas. You can subdivide areas of indentical value with color shifts, between warm and cool, without value shifts, and still descibe form. One common mistake that beginning painters fall prey to is to weaken areas of common value with too many colors and too many values--for instance, don't fall in love with the complexity of reflected light, and the colors, in the dark area of the face--basically keep it all one shape, value and color with VERY SLIGHT shifts of warm and cool colors and value within the shadow to describe his features, so the overall shape stays very unified and simple. You've mostly done that very well here, but some of the colors could be simpler in that area. Check especially the value and color of the shadow area where the nose meets the cheek, it may be a little dark and cool and thus is pushing the left side (our left) of his face too far forward relative to the near side of his head--cheek and ear etc.

Same goes for the background.

Keep it all simple and his inner spirit will thus come forward with less struggle through the paint.