Rose petals
 

This oil is 20" x 16" on canvas. I am sorry I do not have the reference scanned into my system, so cannot post it at this time.

I am trying to concentrate on skin tones with oils. I find this very different from pastel and have been researching a number of palettes, so I unfortunately have changed this too many times to be able to pin down the actual colors used.

Please note this is in progress. The hair and lace do not need comment at this point, unless you see a concern.

Thank you for your input.

This is the detail.

I am using the kid

Elizabeth,

I checked out your web design and it looked very nice and professional. You surely have been a busy lady!

In regards to your latest work, without the reference photo it is difficult to comment.

I would like to see more differentiation in the pupil area. The scan shows it as a dark area, equal to the eyelashes.

I can

Thanks, Enzie,

I do have that veil flowing to the right of her. I have posted the reference photo. It is not the best for lighting, since there is so much reflected light from the white dress, so it is hard to determine.

I think my biggest problem is dropping her left shoulder and slimming down the left hand. I will watch the leg position, too. As you can see from the reference, her eyes are actually darker than I have made them, they are a lot of lashes, but some pupil, that I tried to play up. Can I get away with accentuating this even more?

What of her skin tone? Do you have any thoughts there?

I don

This looks like a fun project.

I have found that alizarin crimson can help tone down gold hair. It is a little hot. That is what stood out to me first.

Beth,

My search for dealing with shadows for "Samantha" made me look in my bookshelf. Guess what I found! A wonderful book entitled Painting Children's Portraits in Pastel by Wende Caporale. I had to share this with you. Her work in pastels is beautiful. She not only leads you through several demos but even gives several examples on different lighting situations during photo shoots, to show how the light changes the outcome on the same pose/model.

I tell you I am getting old and definitely very forgetful. According to the invoice, I've had this book since December last year and somehow totally forgot about it.

Thanks, Lon and Enzie,

Lon, I appreciate the tip about the alizarin crimson, I was ready to go to war with just my titanium white and ochre plus some green today!

Enzie, I do own Wende's book, but I will be honest

Beth,

This little girl is sweet, but the transparent dress would seem difficult to tackle. You're braver than I.

I am just going to mention a couple of things that jump out at me (noting that I am not a pro). The purple background seems a little bright (intense) to me, taking away the importance of the figure. Also, the highlight on the left side of her face is a little too bright (or maybe too white) in color, which seems to flatten out her face. I like the skin color you have on her shoulder. Maybe you could bring some of that color into her face.

Now this is just my inexperienced opinion, you may want to wait for a professional critique before making any changes.

Good luck and keep on painting!

Gina

I wanted to post the progress, which has included your helpful comments above. Thank you.

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