Double portrait

[Ilaria Rosselli Del Turco]

This is my latest commission, on linen, 80x80 cm.
I have been struggling with the the photo a lot, despite following all the indications on the forum. I will try again !

Anyway: I worked a lot on this painting, it was started from a photo and completed with several live sittings. The little girl on the left was a real earthquake and she just would not sit. I have tried to render her energy by painting her slightly blurred. I still have a few details to work on: I need to indicate her foot better,I want again to paint it as if it was moving. I also must check better that little finger on the right hand, plus I will draw her shoulder more carefully, perhaps cut off a bit of her jacket.
Any comment or critique is welcome: I still have a couple of days to work on it !
Ilaria

[Alexandra Tyng]

Hi Ilaria,

I absolutely love how you have painted these girls--they are so appealing and full of life, and their expressions and positons are so animated, they look as if they are wiggling and moving about, and you just pinned them down on the canvas. Frankly I don't know how you managed to do this from life!

I'm assuming you want to integrate them into their setting, but I'm wondering whether you could eliminate some of the detail in the background. The shelf with the books on it seems too detailed and distracts from the subjects. I'm not even convinced the couch needs to be there. Also, I'm wondering whether moving the back wall up toward the girls (so the space doesn't go back so far) would help keep the viewer's eyes from wandering back into the room. I think simplicity would help. I love the rug pattern.

Alex

[Linda Brandon]

Hi, Ilaria! I really like where you are going with this portrait. The poses are winsome yet not "too cute" and I love that they are sitting on the floor. I think you have done a good job with having neither of them steal the show from the other, which sometimes happens in a multiple portrait. I think you have good balance here and the physical closeness connotes a comradely feel to their relationship.

You have a wonderfully fresh painterly approach.

I know that you plan out your compositions carefully so I'm betting that you have planned on having all those lines converge on the little sister's face. The only line that is bothering me is the dark vertical line of the sofa arm which could maybe be blurred and lightened.

I have a question about the scale of the sofa in the background: is it one of those child-sized sofas? I'm also wondering if you want to bring up the color just a little bit on the background to make it less gray. (Speaking from the angle of an artist in fuschia Phoenix to an artist in foggy London. )

[Ilaria Rosselli Del Turco]

Oh oh, I didn't paint it very well...
Linda, you are the second person who sees them sitting on the floor, they are in fact sitting on a bit of the sofa that has no back and forms a corner with the rest (ah these italian furniture designer...), I'll have to take another look at it.

The painting is set in the house basement, they have this very big room with a wall made of glass and open space stairs. The streaks of blue on the right wall are actually drawn by the shadows of the steps. The background is made of greys, it is true, but they are very colourful, purple, green and blue.I don't think I would be able to get away from what I see, but will look again especially to that line of the sofa.
My original design idea was based on suggesting the diagonals as a way of unifying the picture and working against a vertical partition that might occurr between the girls.
Alexandra also has commented on the background, and again I am not sure I feel like reworking all of it, maybe I'll save her comments and suggestion for the next painting.
I have been looking at ways to treat a room in the background while painting this picture, and I was very undecided on how sharp I wanted to go.
Beaux's portrait of the man with the cat has a fantastic background, I just am not good enough at painting to achieve that, and actually ended up being more sharp then I intended at the beginning. ( this is something else on my -to learn list just after drapery)

Just a few more lines about this work: as I wrote it was painted almost all from life. I was in between cameras when I started, and my references where not good. This pushed me to work live, and it was the first time that I used live sittings so extensively.
I must say that I enjoyed immensely the connection with the girls, and the parents are happy about how I captured the essence of their characters. At the same time I faced a lot of difficulties from the pressure of having eyes upon me, and from not having the calm of my studio, which did affect my concentration.
I am not totally satisfied with this work, I found it very complex this time, luckily the parents are happy ; I needed to practice this new situation more to raise my confidence and I am afraid I did it at their expences.
I am very happy though that from your comments it looks like I succeeded at least in carrying across the essence of the two children which was one thing I meditated upon a lot while working.
And, after all, tomorrow is another day!

[Alexandra Tyng]

Ilaria, now that you explained about the section of sofa the girls are on, the perspective makes complete sense. I was a little confused about it, too, but I thought they were on a large leather cushion on the floor! Maybe the confusion arises because the viewer doesn't read the section they are sitting on as part of the rest, because the sofa we see in the background has two arms (two ends).

I understand about not wanting to change the background drastically. If you just eliminated the bookshelf and brought that back wall a bit closer, that would simplify things a lot and bring the focus back to the girls. Don't feel you will hurt my feelings if you don't agree. You might see a better solution.

I really like the way you painted the leather of the cushion.

Alex

[Allan Rahbek]

Ilaria,
I am really impressed that this is made from life. The composition and the cool colors, it is going to be great.
I think that you might want to emphazise the front of the cushion a bit.
Allan

[Sharon Knettell]

Ilaria,

Children, the dilemma, lovely subjects, lousy models.

I hate to be a fly in the ointment of all these lovely comments, but I am having trouble reading this. I thought it was a truncated carpet. If you have to describe what they are sitting on for it to make sense, then it is not working pictorially. There is too much distraction between the two heads as well.

I have found this works, tho' expensive. I have a large blowup of the pose set up next to the child. I call the child "bad Ashley" for example, and the picture "good Ashley". The kids get the joke, they don't sit much better, but you can grab the color from them and the drawing from the photo.

I did the little girl on my site in the ballet costume that way.

Also, that foot opn the left looks wrong.

[Joan Breckwoldt]

Hi Ilaria,

This is a lively portrait and I love the way you're painted these two charming children. Since there is a lot of discussion about what the girls are sitting on, I thought I would add that I thought they were sitting on an ottoman. I had to look twice, but I realized it was something raised off of the floor. I think the problem lies with the area to the left of the ottoman. It reads as a horizontal surface, when in reality it's the SIDE of the ottoman so it should read as a vertical surface. If you can show this side to be more like the side of the ottoman, I think it would easily read that the girls are sitting on a boxlike structure (ottoman, or whatever those designers call it!).

This is just my two cents worth and the idea about changing the (our) left side of the ottoman is just what I would try if it were my painting. Believe me, I'm only right about half the time when I try stuff on my paintings, but I would try it and see how it works.

Joan

[Ilaria Rosselli Del Turco]

Joan, Sharon, Alexandra, Allan, Linda,Thank you very much to all of you, this is really so useful !!
I think I will end up with a new layer as there is reworking needed a bit everywhere!
It is fantastic to be able to ask for help to people that really understand so well what it is all about! And very good to be whipped and not get lazy about going really all the way through.

Sharon that is actually a very good trick, I think I can do it even cheaply: I normally print my reference in B&W to scale, using the poster setting on the printer and taping A4 sheets together. I can then have a good smaller print for finer details.
Also recently I have been drawing my son with a mirror behind me, so that he could see both himself and my drawing and listening to an audiobook. That worked quite well to make him sit still.
Thanks again, I am back at the easel
Ilaria

[Ilaria Rosselli Del Turco]

I think this is a little better: I reworked some parts. I could not bring myself to paint over the bookshelf, also because it has those two glass vases which are a family object and is the only thing that makes this house their house, also I wouldn't know what to paint on top.
Thanks again to all for your help
Ilaria