I wish I had made the little girl larger on the canvas. I liked this proportion in my thumbnails, but am not thrilled with the results.

Here is the close up.

Hi, Beth,

Sometimes it takes me several days to post a response to a work, but I wanted to comment about your background.

The color in the background is as saturated as the color on the little girl's dress. This flattens the image as a whole and doesn't let the background recede. Check out this painting by James Tennison (an artist you linked to in the palette section of this forum) and notice that although his background color is very unified with the colors found on the little girl's dress, they are neutralized enough to stay behind the figure.

I'd seen his work in The Best of Portrait Painting , and how now added his website to my favorites list. Thanks!

Mari, that one of James' that is entitled "Rush" was the one that led me to ask him about his palette. It looks like he has "grayed" down his blues in the background. I will try to do this even more. I have not posted the latest progress, it is improving but still needs help.

I think this Yerington Wader by William Whitaker is just awesome, in addition to how he handled the fabric she is wearing.

Beth,

I think your flesh colors are very believable in a plein air palette.

I also wanted to clarify the term "graying down the background." I prefer the term "neutralize." I think it is advisable to knock back an overpowering color with its compliment. In the case of the purple background, I would use orange or yellow to tone it down.

One last note. In this painting as well as in others you have posted, I see a tendency towards candid, photographic poses. I don't care for candid portrait as a rule, I am very committed to portrait conventions.

One of those conventions is that even if you are using photography, you place your subject in a pose they could hold for 40 hours if they had to. You also take control of the photographic process. You don't just "catch" the subject in a pose, you watch the subject, and then heighten the characteristic gestures that you note. You place the folds, shift the elbow, etc., making a more pleasing composition without disturbing the underlying gesture that is the subject.

I will put a telephone book under the seat of executive to raise their tushes up to create a lap, making a more pleasing seated composition....have them sit on the tail of their coat, tuck in their shirt. On the Fancy Lady portrait, I had Lyn practice the very beautiful limpid hand gestures and stretch out her body for the graceful pose.

By controlling the moment that you are painting, the lighting, the clothing, the body placement, you can control the rhythm, the message, the dance.

Let me put it this way, If you snap a photograph and paint it, it is like a composer recording street noise and going home and transcribing it exactly to paper. Cars honking, sirens, a kid with a boom box ... cacophony.

If, however, you go outside and listen to the street noise, make notes, observe it, and then go back home and rework it and move things around, stretch things out, tuck in a fold, look for the rhythms, you might create something magnificent, like George Gershwin's "An American In Paris."

Peggy

Thank you, Peggy, for taking the time to look at this. I do tend to like casual poses even when I have worked from life. I tend to do more "figurative" works, especially when I am practicing, since my "life" skills have been a challenge. I liked your music analogy, my struggles put me at "Hey, Hey We're the Monkees . . ." which means I should be practicing the real thing (did they really play their instruments?). :D

When you talk about neutralizing with the complementary color, this may sound like such a stupid question, but does it mean to mix that color with the other, paint over like a glaze or something else? I am so new to oils, now I am not sure what the proper technique is.

I am in the process of watching your videos. I keep rewinding them since I always feel I miss something, so I was hoping you would check back here and I could ask quickly, what do you think is the best way to watch them? With a cup of coffee and note pad, drawing along, or watch, stop, try, go back?

With this stage of the painting you do not see the garden with gazebo and rose bushes off in the background using the same color scheme but not as intense. I

Beth,

If the paint is wet, the easiest thing is to just paint the complementary color into the wet paint. They mix together, and you can see immediately if you need to make further adjustments. If the paint is dry, you can just mix the original color (on your palette) with the complementary color, and reapply that new color. Or you can repaint the original color, and then paint the complementary color into the newly wet painted.

You needn't bother with glazes to make this direct kind of color adjustment, although you could.

As far as my videos are concerned, I put them together so there is a ton of information for all levels of student. As you watch them, the information you are ready for should jump out at you. I expect that you should be able to watch them every year and continue to pick up new insights as you are ready for new concepts.

The videos are based on my 7-day workshops, so certainly you could start a painting and paint along using the videos as a template. I know a number of students who have done that. Do the drawing, paint the lit areas in cad yellow, the shadow areas in dioxazine purple. Do the three value massing, color correction, etc.

The Artist Magazine will be publishing an article on my method of painting in their February 2003 issue. There's a step by step, which should also help to explain the method.

One last thing, I just posted at http://forum.portraitartist.com/show...?threadid=1857
on three value massing.

Everything I do segues together. It all kind of weaves itself into a package. So even if it may seem at times to be going in different directions, it all knits back together in the end.

Peggy

Here is the progress of this oil.

I have seen mention here but was not taught this 3-value method that Peggy talks about and found it to be very intriguing. I have tried to apply that method to these changes. It was very tricky to figure out in some areas and made much sense in others.

I am not sure the intensity of the background was solved. I did neutralize it with the complementary color, but left the "sky" area somewhat intense because I wasn

This is the close up.

Her hair has been a challenge because she is such a curly top. I have been trying to tone it down.

To show how I handled the values I have included this as a black and white and also a posterization.

Beth,

Way to go! You have done a very nice job massing the three values. I think your painting is much stronger. I will have a few additional comments to make on a few points, but I am still in Sarasota, and working with an unfamiliar computer. I'll be home Tuesday, traveling all day tomorrow.

Peggy