New Improved Portrait

[Renee Brown]

Hi All, I posted an earlier image of this painting at the end of my last critique, but Cynthia suggested I start a new thread. Thanks to all for the advice you gave me last time. I took all your lighting advice to heart and wound up with a great photo source for this portrait. (I actually asked the mother of this child at a baby shower I attended to allow me to photograph her outside in mid afternoon sun). She agreed and the mother to be has already purchased this painting for the mother as a thank you for the little girl helping out at the shower.

As you can see my technique has improved since I found this forum. I have purchased Chris Saper's great new book, "Painting Beautiful Skin Tones With Color and Light" and I have learned so much from reading it. Chris has guided me and is a generous teacher. Please feel free to make any comments and suggestions.

Renee Brown

[Daniel Arredondo]

Dear Renee;
I like the composition of your painting. The arm and flowers make a circle that brings the viewer back to the face.

The photo used as a reference is not perfect and we must remember when painting from a photo that we are making a copy from a copy.

Photos have three weaknesses in the following order:
Value
Color
Drawing

Value: From life the value of the white part of the shirt would be less highlighted with more white middle tone instead of all the white part of the shirt being in highlight. The bows in her hair would also have some middle tone especially as it meets the hair and possibly some hair color reflected onto the underside of the bow.

Color: The middle tones are washed out in the photo so you left them out. The yellow flowers in real life would have more middle and dark yellow tones. The dress is also washed out in color. The light is from her right side, so there should be traveling light from her right to the her left side on the blue part of her dress. You did a good job with the colors on her face.

Drawing: The closer the photo is taken to the subject, the greater the distortion of the photo because of the convexity of the lense. Since her left hand and forearm were closest to the camera it shows larger than life. Also check her right eye, it may be too high and not angled properly with the tilt of the head. Also double check to see that you have enough cheek to the right side of her mouth.

Sorry for being so picky, but this is the best way to learn. It really is a beautiful painting, but you posted it to try and make it better.

Regards
Daniel

[Renee Brown]

Daniel,

Thank you for your compliments and thanks too, for your critique. I appreciate it very much. I have always worked in live model class but children models are scarce and thus, the photo. That is a point well taken about the color in the middle values and I will make a concerted effort to remember that next time.

This painting has also been glazed which is a technique I am very interested in. I have been watching three ASOPA demo videos this week. The artists are John Sanden, Michael Del Priore, and David Leffel. They are very interesting and it's great to watch their demos. I am very careful with my drawing so I am not sure if the features are off or it's just the girl's stage in development. As Sargent said, "A portrait is a painting with something wrong with the mouth".

Renee

[Chris Saper]

Dear Renee,

Your portrait has a strong and effective composition, and I think you have been very successful in creating the sense of sunlight tumbling across your subject. The simple but well-committed value plan makes your painting read well from a distance..sometimes this is very difficult to do when a piece's transitons are subtle.

It's exciting to see how much growth this portrait shows, even from your prior post.

Kindest regards, Chris

P.S. Thanks for the kind words.