The cart before the horse approach
 

Chuck,

I see by your bio that you want to take portraiture seriously. If that is so, you have to do all the serious study a field like this entails.

You obviously are an educated and intelligent man, not afraid of hard and dedicated work.

I would suggest you review the suggestions I made in the thread "Critiques and Anger; a Lethal Mix".

Roberta Carter Clark has an excellent book called "How to Paint Living Portraits". I would suggest you do that from A to Z. Do not use color until you have mastered form. Then get Daniel Greene's drawing tape, next his painting tape.

I would prefer to see your next post be a study of a head from life, not just another rendering of a photo.

Sincerely,

Hi Sharon,

Thanks for your comments and suggestions. I am serious about improving, and will do whatever work I need to to accomplish this. I will look into all your suggestions.

I do not have a painting from life; I am attaching a drawing I recently did from life. I can see the same issues that were brought up about my painting in the Oil Critiques section: I handicapped myself from the start with frontal and non-directional lighting, and did not use the cues remaining to render the full three-dimensional form of the overall head. This in turn contributed to drawing problems: the hair looks flat, the forehead is too flat, she looks cross-eyed, and the edge of her face on our right comes out too far.

"Normal" lighting
 

I am just realizing how much my unconscious idea of what constitutes "normal" lighting has been influenced by the years I've spent in rooms lit by arrays of ceiling-mounted fluorescent fixtures. I had come to take this as my default lighting when rendering drawings, even despite the actual lighting conditions. I wonder if future generations will wonder why old paintings always showed people in dark closets.

Good Beginning!
 

Chuck,

That is an very nice initial drawing. Consider it your first tiny step.

You have much to learn before you can hang out your shingle. I would not even consider doing commissions right now. That would be really jumping the gun. Give yourself several serious years or more of intensive study before you handicap yourself.

I see much too much dreadfull commissioned work done before the artists are ready. I have done that also and I wish I could burn those canvases.

Being an accommplished artist is not a race. Approach this a not wanting to be a portrait artist, but wanting to be the best artist you can be.

You did not get your first position based on your experience with a toy chemistry set from Toys 'R Us.

Sincerely,

Hi Sharon,

Thank you for your advice. I will have to consider it carefully; I would be a fool to simply ignore the advice of an artist as successful and experienced as you, as hard as it may be for me to hear it. It is a little late to not begin, but I will have to think about what retrenching or stopping would mean at this point. I suppose putting "the cart before the horse," as you put it in an earlier post, comes naturally to me; I worked successfully as an engineer for fifteen years before I ever took an engineering class.

Chuck,

Ironically, so did my brother-inlaw. It is never too late to pursue something you love even if it is only part time. Life should not be wasted on regrets or what ifs.

Look 5 years down the line and see what you would like to be doing. Portrait art is a very competitve business, and takes 5 to 10 years after you have mastered your craft to get somewhat established.

I am now doing my own work which I will post soon.

Good luck on whatever direction you decide to take.

Sincerely,