Thread: Nora
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Old 09-06-2005, 02:52 PM   #7
Alexandra Tyng Alexandra Tyng is offline
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Joined: May 2005
Location: Narberth, PA
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Molly!

This is coming along so well (and your daughter is beautiful, by the way). I know when I paint my daughter I am totally immersed in emotion, while at another level feeling the challenge of the painting process.

Your palette is, I think, different from mine. For the half-tones, I might use perm. rose, cad yellow deep (W-N), a small amount of white, and add some ultramarine blue to grey the cad yellow deep. For the shadow areas, I probably would mix some ultramarine+cad orange+perm rose. In the light, I think earth tones work well for skin, and I use them often. Some of my favorites are mixtures of venetian red, raw sienna, burnt sienna, and yellow ochre half burnt (old Holland). But I don't think earth tones work as well as cadmiums in the halftones or shadows because they do not give the illusion of transparency. It's all too easy to made mud with them. That is just my opinion, and it could be that I never learned to use them well! So I'm not laying down any law here, just making suggestions.

I noticed that your areas of halftone could use more attention, i.e., the forehead, the left (on the painting) cheek, under that eye, and on the left side of the upper lip. Also the turning edges on the (our) right. The value changes in these areas are subtle and important. The neck, which is in shadow, reads as a flat triangle rather than a rounded shape with a hollow to the (our) left of the throat.

Other than that, the only thing that stands out is the left (our left) side of the upper lip, which needs to be more elongated. Right now it is bunched up towards the right.

Alex
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