[Steven Sweeney]

Just to jump in and start somewhere, you've done Melvin the Oaf proud with his rendering (though perhaps it's indelicate to use the word "rendering" within earshot of a dog), especially the head as detailed in the close-up. Those light-catcher whiskers are funny and you've somehow managed to depict the texture of the fur and the slack-skinned bunching, even the chamois softness of the ears. I have a standing request, which I've tried to selectively remember to forget, to paint our white standard poodle (named Matisse), but I've been intimidated by the curly fur. Do you know the secret for that texture as well?

You know by now that I generally proceed somewhat randomly, not insisting that anything's right or wrong, just suggesting areas that might be interesting to revisit.

-- Perhaps in approaching this as a "portfolio" piece, you've chosen an ambitious composition that includes a number of "painting demonstrations" -- a human figure, the dog, furniture and fabric folds, elements of a room, a window view. It may be too much for the portrait to bear, so that the woman kind of becomes just another of many elements in the painting. One thing you might consider is cropping both sides quite a bit, so that the figures dominate the composition. On the left I'd go somewhere between the end of the woman's hand and the edge of the fabric; on the right, perhaps to the shadow edge of the window casing. I deliberately choose those areas so that both the blue fabric and the south end of the dog do in fact run out of the painting, rather than leave edges or arcs close to and parallel or tangential to the frame. You'll have to play with the dimensions; in some circles there's an aversion to square formats.

-- Staying with the composition for a moment, you noted that the size of the dog was daunting, and compositionally, it is that. At the very least, he creates what some refer to as a "duality", an ambiguous statement of what the painting is "about". We're not sure whether it's a portrait of the woman or of the dog. The temptation to answer "Both!" should probably not be given into quickly. Such a duality weakens the impact of the piece. One of the subjects needs to be clearly dominant, the other clearly subordinate.

-- One of my first thoughts the first time I saw the piece was that I couldn't describe the lighting with certainty, either its direction(s) or its intensity. I especially noticed this in the face, which is not only receiving light from both sides (slightly more from the viewer's left) but somehow still manages to have shadow shapes running down the center -- and confusingly strong shadow shapes, too, as revealed when you squint at the close-up. I think the lighting is costing you form in some areas. For example, that bright left edge appears to be advancing, rather than receding, as it would be in nature. It's also freezing that left side, temperature-wise; in the close-up, cover one side of the face and then the other and see if the temperature extension doesn't seem extreme to you. The side on our right is very warm and lovely. (If all that light is coming from the window, time to pull the drapes; more about which, later.)

-- Since we're looking at the face, the eye on the viewer's left seems a little higher than the other. In both eyes, you've correctly lightened the iris opposite the small highlight, but a little too much, I think; that's not light shining on the iris but through it and, so, is represented by just a very subtle lightening of the iris color. Also, taking the side lighting as a given, that crescent of light on the left side of the nose extends up around that eye too far, cancelling out the form effect you introduced by darkening the area where the brow turns under to meet the bridge of the nose. That high crescent of light makes it appear not only that the bridge doesn't recede under the brow, but that it turns and proceeds toward the eye.

-- Some of your shapes have discrete edges that create a kind of "illustration" look. One example is the top edge of the sweater sleeve on the far arm. You might think of such an area as the boundary of a tonal shape rather than a thin edge with its own tone.

-- Staying with the arms, their difference in size suggests possibly excessive foreshortening, as may happen, say, in a photograph taken by a 35mm camera at quite close range. The near arm and hand appear very large, the far ones very small; the "truth" is perhaps somewhere in between.

-- I'm having trouble "seeing" what the woman is sitting on, and not the least of reasons is that it's covered up by the light blue fabric. There doesn't seem to be any thematic or compositional "reason" for that cover. Even if you retain it, I think it would be more pleasing aesthetically to see it in a color (namely, green, perhaps hunter green) that complemented the reds in the sweater and the dog's orangey fur. The folds in that fabric as it drapes down the far left create an area of considerable detail and contrast, and so compete with the portrait subject for the viewer's attention. There doesn't seem to be a "back" to the furniture, against which the woman would be leaning (and with that big dog in her lap, she'd need some kind of support!) Also, the strong diagonal of the furnishing, from below her hand to well above and behind her head, not only tends to lead the eye out of the painting (the curious "arrowhead" folds in that brown afghan exacerbate this), but seems canted at too severe an angle to be explainable by perspective. If that edge fell rather than rose behind the head, it would arrest that movement out of the painting and would also leave us with two diagonals, each of which is leading the viewer's eye toward the subject, the woman.

-- If I'm correctly reading the large square shape behind the woman as a window, I don't think it's effective. It's contributing to the confusion of light and it's minimizing the contrast between it and the head, which is similar in value, thus affecting depth. Consider a wall instead, perhaps with a dimly lit low-detail painting hanging on it, or pull some dark drapes.

I just checked "Preview Reply" and see that I've used up my column-inch quota -- for the month! Guess I'll leave it there. I definitely would close by saying that a great deal of the drawing and the painting application is very good. The matters I've spoken to have more to do with the packaging of it.

Best wishes,
Steven