Tammy,

It was this one...

I remembered ...
 

Hi, Mike,

I remembered after I'd posted, that you have a beautiful daughter. And that's another wonderful photo. Let us see the paintings that develop from this trip. Tammy

Tammy,

You remember right, I do have a beautiful daughter, but this isn't her.

Here is another example of the use of spot metering. Even a stronger back lit condition that turned out pretty good.

One of the advantages I had in the previous photo was that the subject was under a porch and not completely bathed in sunlight.

This example, while a pleasing enough photo, does not give the interesting lights and darks on the face that the previous photo does. This is more of what you can expect of a photo taken out in the open with the subject completely bathed in light. I would call this more of a nice vacation snap shot.

THE TRAP...

Be forewarned, I'm about to express an opinion.

I believe that the out-of-doors, for the less than proficient portrait painter, is a trap. The experienced professionals can do wonders with nothing but a suggestion. I'm talking here about the rest of us.

I believe that as the face becomes smaller, as a percentage of the canvas, your chances of success become smaller. The out-of-doors begs for this to happen. One example is the post above of the girl standing in her bathing suit, next to the palm tree, to the left and down from the palm leaves, just left of the pretty rocks in the water on the right, all against the beautiful Caribbean and sky. When confronted with all of this, how can you not arrange it thus? And so the trap is sprung. The face (portrait part) has been reduced to 4% of the total. Unless your canvas is life size this is going to be difficult. This trap can easily be sprung in your own back yard; you don't have to buy a plane ticket.

Personally I have tried to concentrate on keeping the face big as percentages go. My thinking is that what I need to be about is learning flesh tones and likeness, not about palm leaves and ocean. That doesn't mean that you can't get pretty artsy by sticking to this plan. The first post above could easily be something that I would consider. You just need to be aware and not let yourself be so inclusive (trapped).

I would love to hear other opinions on this argument. Mine is a reasoning born out of one citizen's simple experiences, da.

Well, I do have an opinion on this, and it results from some recent professional advice given to me. I was told that I should spend some time on landscapes and it would improve the portrait painting process. So, I've been doing that and learning a tremendous amount about composition, perspective and color. My view has become less myopic and I've actually broadened my horizons. So, I say keep the palm tree,ocean and the girl with a perfect figure for a figurative painting. Or have I completely missed the point? :D

Doreen,

I think it all depends on where you are positioned along the experience path. Before committing to portraits, I painted a fair amount of landscapes. There is a great deal to learn by doing that. For me, it gave me an understanding of how paint goes from the tube to the canvas. It taught color harmony and composition. I learned all these things and more from landscapes, still lifes and just slopping paint on the canvas and watching how it sticks there. I probably discount those lessons a little too much.

Although valuable information, I don't think it prepare me completely for painting aunt Edna's hair, Amber's teeth, or getting convincing skin tones. These are the things I need. Perhaps it prepared me to begin.

The "trap" that kept me from those goals was allowing those features to become too small at the expense of an interesting tree, bridge, flower or lapping water. I don't mean that these things aren't valuable. Life would be pretty boring without them. What I'm saying is that my beautiful lapping waters will never carry the day for my mediocre portrait. But, if I create a beautiful painted image of a person, you can bet that I will come up to speed on that lapping water after a couple of weeks. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that learning to paint portraits well is difficult. Especially without instruction.

A few years ago, being frustrated in regards to these very issues, I decided to teach myself to create artful portrait photo images. I still believe that the camera can teach so much in the area of composition. I know some think that using photos is just wrong. I'm not going to argue that point here. It seemed clear to me that I could not make artful paintings from common snapshots. For me in my space and in my time this was my answer.

Just an aside, I think the girl in the swimsuit is a beautiful image. The image of the beautiful girl in a swimsuit is so common. We get bombarded with this image it seems (maybe it's just the places I'm hanging out). It's almost too pass