Katie, from life
 

This is the almost completed portrait of the young lady I talked about in the thread:
When do we NOT see?

It is 16 x 12 inches, oil on linen. The sitting time was about 20 hours.

To solve the problem of body image, I put her in a "Scarlet O'Hare" cut top with scarf. I need to have her sit again so I can fine tune her shoulder since we didn't have it uncovered at first.

I believe her hand still needs more detail, and am questioning if I should add the necklace (or one to fit the dress) that she was wearing, or leave the neckline bare.

Thanks for your input.
edited to post better image, I am not sure if you need to "refresh" the page on your browser.

Once again I apologize for the glare and slight distortion. I think it is going to take even longer to figure out how to photograph oils than paint them - I wish! :)

Here is the close up of her face.
editied to post better image, which took care of glare, but not distortion.

Beth,

This is a very lovely piece. I like the colors you've picked, too, except for the green on the dress. I find it is a bit to saturated. But then the painting is not finished yet.

I also like the work on her hair. Very nice.:)

Beth, the eye on our right seems to be turning in a bit too far and giving her a cross-eyed look. Also the right nostril seems quite a bit smaller than the one on our left.

I also feel that the hair is a bit too tousled looking. Some larger soft masses with just a few strands might work better. It would look less tangled.

I think having her wear a necklace would be a good idea. That would give a reason for her hand gesture.

I think the painting would be stronger if you made the back of the chair one solid color. As it is, it looks too informal for the occasion and all those colors are distracting.

I can't imagine she'd have a problem with the way her body looks in this image. She looks fine.

Nice job!

Beth,

I think you solved the problem of her being heavy, but built nicely. I especially like the way you painted the hand and would add a small necklace. I would use a very thin chain with maybe a small pendant, no bigger than the shadow that is already there.

The way her finger is pointed makes me look for something that it not there and I feel that the addition of a small necklace solves that problem. Her toying with it would also add to her youthful charm.

Beth,

I really like this portrait and the suggestion that Enzie made about Katie toying with a necklace sounds perfect. I like the tousled hair, I think you kept the value in her hair as well as in her face. I have to agree that her right eye that Michele mentioned could be adjusted a bit.

Just a few philosophical thoughts I have on your interesting model (yes, I'm getting philosophical as I sit iced into my old Ky. home). In my humble opinion, this painting has turned into a threshold portrait; a teenager stepping into womanhood. Her tousled hair but more formal dress, as well as the soft youthful roundness of her face but more mature penetrating eyes and full lips are what indicates this to me. Thus, toying with the necklace, toying with womanhood. I know, enough rambling.

Immersing yourself in art 24/7 is paying off. Good job!

A quick thank you to you all! I'll come back and give this more attention.

A side note, not meant as an excuse: they "eye" of concern is a "lazy" eye which we had to keep from fading all together - I'll take a better look at that too.

Beth,

Just a couple of quick notes. One of the first things that caught my eye was the relatively hard edge on the (our) left side of the neck. I'd let that soften and recede a bit as it drops. As is, it appears that the "column" of the neck is grounded somewhere forward of her shoulders. This is all the more pronounced by the quite dark halftones in the collarbone area to our left of her fingertip. Lighten that area up on the lighted side of the neck.

The trapezius muscles on either side of the neck are uneven, and this is not "explained" by any drop or other gesture in the far shoulder. It's too short a distance for perspective to be having that effect. Have another look at that.

I wanted to post my progress and thank you for all of your help.

The dress is loosely based on one of Sargent

Here is a close up of the face.

I based the jewelry on a treasured ring of mine that my grandmother gave my mom when she was sixteen.

Beth,

I love the necklace and the ring. Nicely done!

Very nice progress. The hair and chair are greatly improved.

I would take another look at the direction the eye on our right is pointing. If anything it looks as if it's turning in even more than before.

On the dress, I would suggest you try to find something appropriate that she can wear that you can paint while really looking at it. The vagueness I see in the treatment of the dress probably reflects the fact that you didn't have something right in front of you to see how the folds and reflections would go.

Also the shawl over the right shoulder is so close in color to the rest of what she's wearing that it looks like it's part of her dress, but not drawn quite right. I had to check your earlier postings to see that it was a separate piece of cloth.

Thanks Enzie, I really love that ring.

Michele, I played around in PhotoShop with the eyes. It appeared that the real problem might have been with her right eye, I have a ton of reference photo

Here I have superimposed the lower set of eyes over the close up of the painting above.

Still looks like the eyes are not pointing in the same direction, to me. (Anyone else get that feeling too?)

The photoshop changes you posted seem to have made the iris on our left much smaller than the one on our right, and made the eye on our right looking even further inward.

Either the eye on our left needs to be looking further left (if you want a way-off-to-the-side gaze) or the eye on our right needs to be looking further right (if you want a looking-just-a-bit-to-the-side gaze).

It is tricky, I know. I tweak irises over and over on my portraits to get them looking correct.

I straightened her eyes and I moved the chin so it wouldn't be off center. I don't know if by doing this I lost your likeness but it was worth a try.

It is too late now that you're into this, but when your sitter has a lazy eye, blemish, birthmark or somesuch, try to adjust the pose and/or the lighting so that this particular feature is not so apparent. I think that it is not good to "correct" someone's face in order to make it look like we want it to look.

Ultimately it is much better to begin a portrait like this by posing the model to emphasize the good features and minimize the features that are not so flattering.

Here are some examples of ways to minimize unflattering features:

--Consider a profile view of a person who has one eye that turns in or a birthmark on one side of the face.

--If you are photographing a model who has a nose that curves to the side, shoot into the curve to minimize the distortion.

--To minimize a large nose, aim your light down the axis of the nose so the shadow falls under the nose and not to the side.

Etc.

Karin and Michele, thank you.

I am not an iris person - yikes, it is so tough for me, and so incredibly important!

Karin, I don't think you changed the likeness, I think she looks pretty nice actually. Thank you for the tip on the problem areas. Just learning from life, I noticed her eye really didn't start changing until she was really bored with sitting. It was hard to go back and forth, and not keep her from looking like a "deer in the headlights".

I see I'll be busy in the a.m. ;)

This is a really good argument for using a camera to capture a pose while it is still "fresh."

Here is the progress, still miles to go.

Fortunately like Karin said, I had taken tons of reference at each sitting. So I am developing her dress from one shot with a tube top on.

Here is the close-up of her face. I need to tone down her lip color and finish the hightlights in her eyes.

The eyes are definitely looking at the same place now, though I would double check the shape of each eye. Changing the direction of the gaze always changes the shapes of the upper and lower eyelids.

I would watch the very saturated greens you have in the lower areas of skin and tone them down a bit.

Looks like a completely different painting than what you started with. I'll bet you find it easier not to have to invent clothing you never saw on her! I would soften the upper edge of the tube top considerably though.

Nice progress!

Maybe it is just my monitor but the entire painting is very "hot." I suggest that if what I am seeing is correct, you might want to cool down the background a bit in order to push it back and complement the skin tones.

Other than this, it's lookin' good, Beth!

Hi Beth,

The eyes were still bothering me. In this version I moved the left pupil a fraction to the left, and the right pupil a fraction to the right.

Greetings,
Peter

Thanks Michele, Karin, and Peter,

We had a snow day today so I tried to get in touch with Katie to come over and sit, but she must be sledding.

I hit myself for not remembering the rule on the "eye ball" that you pointed out Michele. I think that is what could be bothering you, Peter. In one of my reference photos she is looking straight on, so I have been working from that today. But as Karin pointed out, I missed the opportunity to down play this whole "eye" thing by changing her pose. Her eyes just do weird things and I am afraid to play with them much more than what I have done today. I'll try to post it in the a.m.

She is starting to look like the lady that was married to Donald Trump - a little too fancy! Maybe she can tell people it was her, 10 years from now!

I am toning it all down, Karin, especially those hot lips and the purple hair shadows. I'll work on that background too! (The dress has just been blocked in.)

If you want the face to be as attractive as possible, you might want to concentrate a bit more on the symmetry of things here and there, especially the lower part of her face.

There's a fine line between going too far, towards overt flattery (and losing the likeness in the process) and being starkly honest about how our subjects look, imperfections and all.

It is, of course, a totally subjective decision, and one for you to make with each painting. Studies have shown, though, that we perceive a face as more attractive (and therefore ascribe all kinds of positive characteristics like kindness, intelligence, etc.) to faces that are more symmetrical.

Thanks for the wisdom Michele.

I think I was able to get a good enough shot with out too much wet glare to go ahead and post the progress on the eyes. I also toned down the lips and background.

It helps when you attach the image.

The image is a bit on the yellow side, sorry.

Here are just the eyes.

Here is a composite of some of the reference photos shot while sitting. This might help give a hint of likeness.

Nicer color!

A small thing: the lipstick seems to be running well beyond where her lip would end, at the lower left corner of her mouth.

The biggest thing I see now is that the eyes (especially the one on our left) seem too wide open, giving her a deer-in-the-headlights kind of look. On a relaxed face the upper eyelid would cover more of the top part of the iris. We wouldn't be able to see the iris curve in as much at the top as we do now. (I know, I know, eyes are very hard to paint!)

Great minds think alike!

Michele, I swear my kids are going to bury me with lipstick on my teeth. I'll fix that, I have yet to blend the edges.

When you look at the photo's of Katie do you see the difference in her eyes? So you think I should bring the lid down? I might give it a go in photoshop then look at it again. Thanks!

The only photo of her that shows this eyes-wide-open look is the one at the top left and it's definitely a deer-in-the-headlights look.

In the other photos her eyes look more relaxed and natural. In those photos the amount of the top half of the iris that can be seen is much less.

To a lesser extent, the staring look she has in the painting (in the eye on our left, particularly) is due to the sharpness of all those eye edges and the extreme contrast between the iris and the white of her eye.

Round 500!

Here is the current progress:

It is still wet in some spots, so if you see something wrong it is most likely the glare!;)

Here is the close-up:

I think you'll never be able to get those eyes quite right until you correct the overall features that are misaligned. To see this more easily, I reoriented the face to a horizontal/vertical axis based on a line between the center of the eyes and the center of the face.

I drew lines to point out some of the areas of misalignment and uneven measurement. If you correct these, the eyes will become a piece of cake.

I am not sure if this is ready for posting, but I figured everyone could suffer or rejoice with me! ;)

I'll show the detail first.

Here is the full figure.

Such an improvement over where it started! Very nice.

After much reading here, and in a few suggested books, I made quite a few changes to this piece. I am posting it in the unveiling section under "3 different completions". Comments are still welcome!