Painting larger than life

[Patt Legg]

I am posting an 18x24 oil in the beginning stages of my umber study. I read about the no-no about larger than life paintings but I love to paint larger than life for impact--but never for a commissioned portrait.This particular one is not a commission. I feel that this is for me and I can stretch the rules a bit. I will attempt to post my reference photo also. All comments welcome. I intend to drape the left shoulder as with the edge of a cape. Unfortunately, my photo had my reference photo in front of it.

Thanks,
Patt

[Patt Legg]

Reference photo.

[Lon Haverly]

So far, so great!

[Michael Georges]

I think that painting adults larger than life is ok, but not children or especially babies.

Nothing is worse than a giant baby head!

[Lon Haverly]

My only thought when drawing larger than life is the usual tendency to distort the features by undersizing them in relation to the rest of the head. Here, the eyes are perhaps a little too far apart, perhaps because they are a little bit undersized. The axis of the eyes seems to be tilted a bit to the left as well. It is tough draw this big and stay accurate. But, here, it seems to work anyway.

[Patt Legg]

Thanks to both of you for your comments thus far. I agree with you Michael about the giant baby head. Been there before. I had a solo show locally awile back and my theme or title was "Up Close and Personal". All of the "then" watercolors were larger than life, quite interesting.

Lon, I will indeed check out your eye and distortion comments. I think the eyes are a bit small also. Too far apart, I will have to check it out. It is strictly from photo that I took of him while he was here from Germany. I thought maybe my shading will make the eyes feel a little different too. I have not actually completed all of the study.

Thanks so very much. All the comments are so helpful and to see it with fresh eyes.

Patt