Please critique

[Pam Phillips]

I have been painting for a year, trying to put together a portfolio. I did a handful of portraits MANY years ago, but I could only paint when I felt inspired, and inspiration only lasted for a day or so. Two years ago, a friend who had seen those paintings, asked me to paint her sons, and a year later I felt psyched to do it. Since then, I have been working hard and thoroughly enjoying it. I would appreciate any comments or suggestions about any aspect of this painting of my daughter.

[John de la Vega]

Hi Pam,

Amazing painting for only a year's worth of 'concentrated' experience. Good color, good form, good edges, lively brushwork, expressive treatment of personality.

Things that could be improved, in my view:

Mouth a bit too prominent, takes over expression, even with the lovely handling of the eyes. Her mouth could have that expression, seen from life or in a photo, but we sometimes need to de-emphazise for subtlety. Negative shape around figure not quite balanced, the right hand-side of painting too 'rectangular', takes on too much importance which, coupled with narrow left, squeezes the head and shoulders, imbalancing the perception.

I am impressed with the piece, regardless of how much time you have seriously devoted to painting.

[Pam Phillips]

John,

Thanks for your kind critique. My father will be thrilled to learn that you agree with him about the mouth! Tessa wears braces and I tried to tone down the distortion they cause by minimizing the shadow under her lower lip. I'm kind of stumped about what else to do. I hadn't thought about centering the subject better on the canvas; that's something I'll look at more carefully. I've been focusing more on the impressionistic treatment of her shirt as not being a good idea. This is the first time I've blended a subject's shoulders into the background and I was wondering if I just should have handled them realistically.

[John de la Vega]

Pam,

The mouth can be de-emphasized by lowering the intensity of the lip color, or making the value 'lighter' without adding brightness to the mouth as a whole. I have no problem at all with your 'impressionistic' handling of the shirt. The form reads well the way it is, always the criterion to use. Better to 'suggest' than to go in the direction of realism - especially in a head-and-shoulders, where 'vignetting' or suggesting are always good choices. In finer realistic rendering the demands for accuracy increase exponentially. As far as positioning the figure, 'centering' is not always desirable, but the interplay of the negative shapes (in connection with other dynamic elements in the figure itself) must be carefully observed and designed.

[Pam Phillips]

John,

Thanks again, and now I definitely see the rectangular negative space on the right side! I'm glad that your suggestion for de-emphasizing the mouth only involves a change in values and not structure or location.