Alice and Randy

[Leslie Ficcaglia]

Terri, very nice job and you've certainly got the likenesses down well. My only suggestion would be to push your darkest darks and your lightest lights a little more; right now the tonal quality isn't varied enough so it looks a little flat. There's much more contrast in your reference photo, and particularly her hair and features, and his eyes, are darker there. This one was quite a challenge, wasn't it!

[Terri Ficenec]

Hi Leslie! Thanks for the feedback.

I think what you may be seeing is a combination of glare and sunken in colors. I guess I was a little overeager to post the adjusted coloring on her face and posted these updated images even though I wasn't able to get a good clear shot of it.

I'll try to post a better image of the painting in the morning when the light in my studio seems to be better for photographing and hopefully the paint won't be quite so shiny.

[Kimberly Dow]

Terri,

Nice job. The only thing I see is that I'd want to integrate them into the background more. Maybe some blurred edges and some green from the background added into their hair, clothes?

[Sharon Knettell]

I don't have much to add to what is said about the faces, the modeling is well done. What I think needs to be addressed is the overall color.

The green background and the bright blue of her dress fight.

When I am doing figures together, I usually have them wear the same color. It makes them look more unified, even if they are on the brink of a divorce. There is on my website a picture of a couple in a landscape. I knew I wanted to paint them in their lovely lakeside home in the autumn, To counterbalance the bright orange of the leaves, I had them both wear variations of blue. The orange was bright and the blues were subordinate and duller.

You have make a decision from the getgo, what your color scheme is going to be, complementary, analagous or monochromatic.

In the original shot it looks like they were both wearing black, that works fine with the rather bright green background. All you need to do was add a touch brighter red lipstick on tha lady and give his tie a hit of duller red.

If they both are in blue the background could be a dull orange with his tie providing a bright orange accent. Or the background could also be a dull blue if you are to make her dress rather bright and his suit a navy, with an orange accent.

I think the hands could be toned down a bit as well.

There are times when a painting is like an old leaky boat, you fix one spot and another spot needs work. It helps to do a quick color study beforehand.

You have done a great job on the faces, I think this will work fine with a few color adjustments.

Two additional hints, I always overrouge my subjects ( even CEO's). Then I take some liquin and tint the photos even more. The extra color seems to work in paintings, if not in life.

I hopes this helps, this is not meant to discourage or dishearten you.

Sincerely,

[Terri Ficenec]

Kim -
Thanks so much for the feedback. I do need to revisit some of those edges. As far as integrating the color goes, it looks like maybe I've got to figure out what the colors ought to be first . . .

Sharon -
Thanks so much for the feedback, I really appreciate your taking the time to share your thoughts! Your points on color and color theme and needing to integrate the colors are well taken. It seems to be something I'm struggling with lately, and haven't got quite figured out.... at least I'm not getting it figured out before getting myself into a mess, these days.


I'm attaching below a glare-free photo of the painting as it is currently, and a paint shop pro altered version with the dress turned a dull burgundy wine-color (The dress she actually wore was a deep blue purple that I'd pushed more towards the blue) .... I'm wondering if this would work, rather than putting her in black?

[Sharon Knettell]

Terry,

When you work with complementary colors it helps if one of the colors dominates, ie bright red with dull green. Also you are dealing with several kinds of green warm and cool. I don't know if the monitor is correct but in the previous picture his jacket is more olivey and her dress is bright blue and the background is an intense green. Disparate greens like this can work in a landscape but is difficult to pull off in a portrait such as this.

I think at this point, to me at least, the best solution would be to keep the dress blue, put him in a navy suit and employ a soft medium blue grey background. A strident green can dull the skintones by comparison whereas a dull grey blue would make them look brighter. The grey blue should be in the same family as the dress color, it seems somewhat of an ultramarine, which means the background blue should not lean towards the green. The accent color, since the blue is more toward a purply blue would be a lovely small touch of yellow. Not a cool yellow but a yellow with some orange in it. His tie could have a the blue of her dress with a yellow stripe.

Try to put some yellow in her necklace. It should work.

I have been in this situation. It can be very frustrating. Put your feet up, have a cup of tea and look at it in the morning.

Sincerely,

[Marvin Mattelson]

I actually like this new color scheme. For what it's worth anyway. The colors wouldn't be so pure. There would be some of the background color affecting the shadows of side and top planes it reflects into. The same goes for the color of her suit. It would reflect into his suit and into the under planes of her jaw. Colors reflect and bounce everywhere. Your painting looks more like a hand colored photo than a harmonious scene. It's very difficult to make these things up though. It really needs to be observed from reality. The best solution is to set up everything so it looks good before you paint it. That's what Sargent and Paxton did, just to name two.

The thing that bothers me the most though are the dark value shadows under his jaw. Look at your photo. See how much darker the light part of the suit is compared to his jaw shadows. You have knocked the intrinsic value relationships that existed in your setup and thwarted them. The result is an unnatural look. Scumbling over these shadows with a lighter value would help.

Good luck.

[Linda Brandon]

Hi Terri,

"Married couple" paintings are the hardest thing in the world to do well, in my opinion, and I just wanted to let you know that I like your painting very much so far. I'm about to begin one of these myself and I'm watching this thread with keen interest.

I'll keep out of the color harmony discussion. The last few portraits that I've done have had very warm backgrounds and I seem to be wandering off in those directions. (I'm hoping that Tolkien was right: "Not all those who wander are lost.")