Early progress for critique

ReNae Stueve · 01-30-2003, 11:33 AM

I've started a piece I promised Mother I would do. She is my biggest fan and the one who placed me in training at the age of 10. She is also that 1940's knock-out I posted earlier. Anyway, Mom is facing the challenge of her life right now, so I'm pressed to make some good progress.

This is the underpainting with just a little color thrown in because I'm impatient. (Sorry.) But everything is wet and moveable. Can anyone please take a look and see where I'm off. I think the right (our left) eye is angled wrong. I'm still playing with the lips, but I'm having trouble "seeing" them.

P.S. Now that I've got it up here, I see that he is a little too short. Where is it?

ReNae Stueve · 01-30-2003, 11:35 AM

for comparison. It's the only one I've got that seemed even remotely suitable.

Rochelle Brown · 01-31-2003, 02:49 PM

With the look on his face you may want to try to include your Mom somehow, as well as the corsage! It may help to make the complexion more ruddy or add a little burnt sienna to the forehead and the area in front of the ear.

Enzie Shahmiri · 01-31-2003, 05:33 PM

Hi ReNae,

Double check the forehead (our left side, when compared to the adjacent negative space in the original, the forehead needs to come up more and with a lesser angle.

I love the way you did his pupils. You successfully opened the gateway to his soul. I sense kindness and clarity.

Your coloring will need some work, but I leave that for others to comment on.

ReNae Stueve · 02-20-2003, 08:36 PM

OK, I've piddled with this one some more as an anti-stress work. As some of you know, Mom is now very ill.

Thank you for your comments to date. I'm still working on the likeness and really would like your input. (A.k.a. help.)

By the way, that's not Mom, that's step mom so no, she won't be in the picture. Dad has passed since, so I'm working from this photo and memory only.

I've got some glare on the photo. Please try to see past that.

Tom Edgerton · 02-20-2003, 09:08 PM

ReNae--

Can't totally comment on accuracy since I can't get them both side by side, but the only thing I saw in the underpainting that stuck out was the proportion of the forehead. Things migrate as we paint, and the hairline has a tendency to slip upward. Seems you addressed it in the second version though.

I know you're trying to overcome the bleaching of the face by the flash, but be careful that you don't overwarm your lights. In the second version, I see warm shadows and warm lights, and most of the time, unless the lighting is very unusual, you will have warm lights/cool shadows or cool lights/warm shadows. Richard Schmid says this is the only absolutely true color rule, and I've found this to be pretty reliable. Remember, cool is a relative term. A cool shadow could still be red, but would be more alizarin and less sienna, for instance--doesn't mean it has to be green or blue.

Apart from that, be relentless with your values, and keep 'em simple. Also, I think that your value progression could be simpler in the coat--it's a little patchy now. A flash will always exaggerate contrast and contribute to this.

Also, to your question, the mouth has the right feel, but try slightly lightening the value of the upper lip, and making the (our) right end of it ever so slightly thinner. I usually put the upper lip in too dark and almost always have to lighten it up, which inevitably gives it a less pasted-on feel.

But overall, it's shaping up well.

I'll hold you all in the Light (as we Quakers say).

ReNae Stueve · 02-21-2003, 01:56 PM

Tom,

Thank you for your comments.

I've looked and looked at this, perhaps too much, and although I can see the indication of his jaw bone, I haven't been able to reproduce what I see. What do I see anyway? It's so subtle and so hard to see in a photo. Can anyone elaborate?

Tom Edgerton · 02-21-2003, 05:21 PM

ReNae--

Look at the vertical break between the lights on the front of his face and the plane that's the side of his face--the inch or so just in front of his ear. It's a vertical plumb line from the frontmost hair at the temple downward--between the ear and about a half inch back from the eye socket. Farther down, where it meets the neck, is the corner of his jaw.

Usually when there's a break in the light that washes across the forms (in this case from left to right) that's as pronounced as this, it indicates something hard under the skin, i.e. bone, instead of something soft, i.e. fat or muscle. In that instance, there would be a more gradual gradation of the light, unlike here.

Unfortunately, the flash is washing some of this out.

In the photo, it's also a break between cool lights and warm halftones, and probably should be painted as such, though the photo is making this color shift harsher than it actually is.

Do you see what I'm talking about?

ReNae Stueve · 02-21-2003, 07:53 PM

Tom,

Yes, I see it now. You're right, the flash has washed out that which I "know" is there.

We are going to have a rainy Florida weekend, so I will spend some early morning time bringing out the turn on the side of his face and at the jaw line. I will also cool down the lights a bit. The photo has warmed them up here, but they could still use lots of work.

Thank you very much for your input.

I loved being "held in the light", too -- what a wonderful feeling.

Leslie Ficcaglia · 02-22-2003, 09:36 AM

ReNae, this is an excellent likeness and I like the texture on his face. The main thing that strikes me, aside from the others' comments, is his cheekbone on our left. You have it jutting out more prominently than it is in the reference photo; your photo shows a smoother, less diagonal (left downward to right) line from that cheekbone to the chin, and in part that's because the cheekbone doesn't come out as far to the left on the photo as you've painted it. To make it all work, I think his supraorbital ridge and the visible edge of his right eye (our left) might also need to come in toward the left just a bit.

His eyes are a little more hooded in the photo, which gives him a more relaxed look there. And the fold of his cheek from the bottom of his nostril to the plane of the mouth, on our right, should end further to the right before it curves back toward the mouth, to give more of a smiling effect. These are all very minor details, though, of the sort that I imagine every artist works over as a piece progresses, and on the whole it's very good. Take care!