Rebecca, first oil portrait nearing completion
 

I would like critiques on this painting. It is my first oil portrait. I have only done watercolor portraits in the past. I am attaching the ref. photo and a full length shot and a headshot. Any other closeups that are requested will be posted at that time. I want to go back and soften the edges of the coat a bit, but unless I find something else that needs tweaking, or get any other suggestions here, I am calling this one finished.

Thank you in advance for your time and comments and yes, digital manipulation is welcome.

Monique

P.S. I know I have thickened her hair slightly, but hopefully it does not take away from the likeness. Size is 16x20, oil on canvas.

Hi Monique, This is beautiful! Execution top notch!

As per requested I will give some suggestions. Please excuse me for being so bold and picky but my suggestions mite have some value. If they don

Monique, leaps and bounds from the first post, don't you think?

Good job!

:thumbsup:

Hi Monique,

You are doing such a great job (I only wish I could pick up watercolor as fast), I hate to mention a few little things, but here goes:

There are a few places where the value contrast is too strong. The places that stand out for me are in the coat (around the pocket, under the arms, vertical wrinkles under the collar) and in the girl's face (chin, bottom of cheek, under her eyes). The exaggerated contrast results in a slightly overworked appearance. Also, the transitions in the wool coat are not gradual enough. A little more blending should do the trick.

The hair looks much better!

Thrilled to hear these comments
 

I am so relieved to hear what you guys are telling me!! You just have no idea! I knew I needed to work on the coat, and softening up the contrast on the face is easy enough..so is shaping the bow better.

I am so relieved to hear no changes to her likeness or that darn hair! lol.....that means I really may be on the home stretch after all!! Feels good, I can tell you that! Truly, I do see the coat issues...I could leave it alone, but why, if I can make it even BETTER!! I strive to really work hard on each piece until I know I just can't do anymore on it without ruining it. I'd say after tomorrow's painting day, I'll be signing it. By the sounds of it, I get the thumbs up from you guys, after the minor changes have been made.

Thank you all so much....

Monique

Oups did not upload?
 

Not sure why. I probably did something wrong. Sorry!

This was to go with my suggestion post. Stil a problem uploading?

upload
 

3rd attempt partially uploaded problem. sorry!

Finally completed...
 

I'm finished...let me know if I addressed the issues you all shared.

Monique

Monique - this is a beautiful little girl, and you have done her justice. I love the subtle yet strong red of the coat. Her flesh tones are just lovely.

I was going to post this the other day, but decided against it, but upon reflection I think that if it were me in the same situation, I would want to know.

You had some camera distortion in your reference photo which caused her far eye to be slightly higher than it should, and, unfortunately, you have exaggerated this to the point where her eyes are completely misaligned. It's one of those cases where we will accept something in a photo because we're used to the lens doing that sort of wonky thing to our faces, but in a painting, it should be fixed (ideally in the drawing stage, though... sorry.).

I didn't say anything, because I didn't think it was a commission, but then I thought, if it IS a commission, or even if you plan to use it in your portfolio, you would most likely want to address that.

As Richard Schmid says: "Never knowingly leave anything wrong in your painting." (or words to that effect.)

I've flopped the detail shot horizontally - you can, I think, see what I mean.

Wow...
 

Thanks for pointing that one out. NO ONE has said anything about that. I can't believe that flipping it makes it stand out. darn it! ...... :)

don't know if I'm up to this, lol.....does that mean the whole back eye needs to be re-set???? now little perfectionist me will stare at that eye forever!! kidding....

I'll weigh up my options..I wonder if there is a way, not so intrusive, to fix that??? I'll report back..Thanks SO VERY MUCH for the honesty...I expect that from you guys..that's why I post here!!

Monique

If it were me, these are the steps I would take.

First - put an isolating layer of retouch varnish on it. That way, if you mess up what you're doing, you can easily remove the additional paint without disturbing what you've already done. Let that dry.

Oil out the painting (put a whisper-thin layer of linseed oil over it, then wipe it off). Then mix your flesh tones in shadow, and paint into the wet surface.

You might find that you can just repaint the eye area - or it might be that you'll have to revisit the whole shadow side of her face. I guess it depends on how well you can recreate the flesh tones in shadow.

Monique,

I haven't been into the Critiques area for quite a while, hence the tardiness of my observations.

I've actually twice this evening filled a "Reply" window, and even did a little Photoshop double-checking, but didn't post either effort, because I didn't feel I was explaining myself very well.

But I'm a compulsive sort, so I'm just going to make some parting notes about some things to consider as you make your final revisions.

I don't know if an instructor told me this or if I read it somewhere, but the advice was essentially to make sure that the thing you're changing is the thing that needs to be changed.

That eye may indeed need to be moved, but to even know how much to move it, you might benefit from making a few other tiny adjustments. One of the reasons that eye looks high is because the lower half of the face has become slightly skewed toward our left and cast slightly downward, which then of course just amplifies the eye effect.

I see four areas that have contributed to this "skewing" (these are just to my eye, mind you, nothing "true" or "false" about this):

1- You've let the corner of the mouth on our right side drop down. This is apparent in the close-up, where you've painted the dark line between the lips to drop down suddenly before reaching the corner of the mouth. If we think generically, a line between the irises of the eyes and a line between the corners of the mouth would be roughly parallel (or on parallel circles of latitude, if we think in terms of the head's round shape, in any orientation). By lowering the right-side corner of the mouth, those lines instead diverge, and depending on one's perspective, the corner of the mouth will either look "low" or the eye on that same side "high."

2- I think the chin is slightly too narrow. It is very slight, but I do think, looking at the photograph, that the chin is slightly more "underneath" the mouth/muzzle structure than appears in the painting. Put another way, the mass of the chin structure is moved slightly to our left, which in turn pulls the lower part of the face in that direction, and adds to the downcast aspect of that part of the face.

3- The cheek contour on the shadow side is just every slightly too wide and too generically round.

4- Slightly too much of the middle tone on the nose is moving over into the lighted side, which turns the structure of the nose toward us. Letting the light flow just a bit more across the bulb of the nose will keep the centerline of the nose closer to the hair-to-neck centerline arc (the longitude counterpart to the latitude lines, mentioned above), the sort of thing you'd see by drawing a vertical line on an egg and then turning the egg about 30 degrees to the right.

Think about those things and make any adjustments that seem right, at which time you may decide not to move the eye at all, or you may decide that it does need to be moved, but only 1/8 inch instead of the 1/4 inch or whatever seemed necessary in isolation.

A Photoshop demo image wouldn't be helpful here. There are too many things going on at once, so you're going to have to make the calls as you go. For example, perhaps widening the chin will make the cheek contour adjustment unnecessary -- I simply can't know.

My major point is to encourage you to ask a larger question than merely, is the eye too high? Rather, take notice of the fact that observers are telling you that the eye seems too high, and then spend some time looking at the overall structure to determine what it is that might be contributing to that effect. Because if the location of the eye is only one of, say, five contributing factors, and you move the eye, there will still be four things not quite "right," and if you then go in and adjust each of those in isolation, the newly-moved eye might be in the "wrong" place -- again!

If it all comes down to moving the eye -- do it. But back up and re-think in terms of value shapes and other fundamentals, rather than "moving an eye." That will be less intimidating -- and it will work better, anyway.

Monique,

I have also been enjoying watching your work in progress and think that you have done a fine job.

Now for the nitpicks, I do think that you could push some details around a bit.
There are several things going on, as Steven suggested, so if you do one thing you will have to do another also.
I have done a few things in Photo Shop : 1. I picked the color from the background and took the forehead a little back. 2. With the same background color I straightened the cheek. 3. About her left eye, I did not lower the whole eye area, but filled some light color into the upper eyelid to "press" the eye from the top, and I took some of the dark in the iris added some to lower it.( Maybe you will need to lower the pupil also )
4. The mouth. I did raise the right side ( her left) and corrected the upper lip shape and slightly lowered the shadow, between the lips, on the left side.

By the way, the coat color reads warmer in the painting, how about adding a touch of colder highlight / texture?

I believe that the reference photo was taken from a distance, as it should be, and that that it is part of the perspective problem. Not that it is wrong, it

Believ'n Steven...
 

Monique - Steven's advice is spot on! (And Alan's, as well)

I've photoshopped some changes to show you - the changes are really minor, and all done without moving the eye a bit.

The turn of her chin on the right side falls much farther over to the right - lining up a little to the left of the iris if you draw a plumb line.

Her mouth on our left is raised too high, I lowered that side, and raised the other side - which puts her mouth in the same perspective as her eyes.

Then, lower the whatchacallit - fleshy part of her nostril- on our left, and raise it a tad on the right.

Cheek came in a bit, and her forehead is missing the beautiful little scoop. If you raise her hairline just a tad, it' ll give her the proper head size for such a little girl.

Anyway - this may seem like a lot more changes than just moving an eye, but they are little adjustments, not a major repaint.

You're also missing an opportunity to reflect some red into her chin.

I've posted the flopped view, too, to show you it lines up if you make those changes.

Monique,

I didn't chime in here sooner, not only because you are getting excellent advice, but also because these small details don't detract very much from the likeness. I know you probably won't agree with me, but I think in the long run these things are less important than the learning experience involved in trying a new medium.

I'm not saying you shouldn't try to get the features accurate--I try myself, so why would you not want to do the same?--I am thinking that your learning curve would be faster if you went to life painting classes every week or so and knocked out a portrait head or a figure study in 3 hours. Then you'd have to let it go. You wouldn't be able to perfect it. You would just move on to the next one. Also, you'd learn by trial and error to mix colors, get the most efficient brush strokes, etc. A perfect result would not be the goal of the 3-hour session.

This is not exactly a critique of this particlar painting. I am looking at this one, and your mother-daughter watercolor, and seeing that you worry a lot about achieving control of the medium. Do not worry! Control will come, but not this way. It will come by breaking out and not thinking of control, only of the joy of painting.

I hope you don't take this wrong. I really like this painting, but I don't want you to fuss with it too long. Move on to the next one. By the way, you could certainly take commissioned work at the same time as you take life-painting classes.

Alex

Alex, that is good advice. Just paint. Over and over again. Understanding of the medium will come.

However, if this is a commission (Monique...you didn't say?) then she will want to address the issue, don't you agree?

Thank you ALL for your time!!
 

You guys have gone over and above the call of duty with this one. I am going to print out all of your suggestions and study them, carefully. Cindy, you have put a lot of time into your critique of this painting, and I thank you very much for that. Alex, thank you, as always.....life drawing classes are something that I think I would be just invaluable to me. Allan, Steven...thank you both, beyond words, also!! Very eloquent critiques....your understanding of our art that we love is apparent. As I stated, I am going to print out all that has been suggested here, study them, and decide what changes will be made, if any. I have a big mental problem with deciding one is "finished" and having no desire to go back into it once that mental decision has been made...bad BAD trait.

This is not a commission...it was an experiment from a photo I took a few years ago and have always loved...an experiment with a new medium..to test myself and see if I was able to learn it before I put myself out there as an oil portraitist. I study every single artist on SOG's site...each and every one, a few at a time, I look at every portrait they've done...I am pretty decisive about what I like and what I don't..I have my favorites, as anyone would. I try to study their style and learn from colors used, composition, skin tones...handling of clothing, backgrounds...etc. I soak them up like a sponge! This painting was a test. passed/failed....don't care...it was a wonderful experience nonetheless...I'm proud of it, and being so hard on myself...I study each area that I'm pleased or not pleased with, try to learn from it and take that experience onto the next painting. Each one I try to correct my errors on the previous one and do think that my last painting is always my best ever. Isn't that the way it SHOULD work? I think so.

Thanks to everyone who spoke up here, it is greatly GREATLY appreciated.

In that case, Monique, call it done. OR - make changes to it, using it as a test panel to figure out exactly how you would approach it. Try different methods. Use it to learn.

:thumbsup:

Comments on "the details" can seem a little overwhelming, especially in the early investigations of a new medium or procedure (and in my case, late in the thread). There's no question that this is a very striking presentation, and if you changed nothing on it, it still would be. You leaped with ease many of the hurdles that others struggle with for a good while before breaking through.

You are wise to want to print out the comments and give them due consideration in time. Some are necessarily shorthand for more complex notions and, so, might not make a lot of sense in any one critique. Almost all are not just about what you "have to fix" in the work under review, but about the entire approach you will bring to your next painting, and then to your next thirty paintings. It may be #23 before some element mentioned here will lead to an "Ah ha!" experience.

As for going back into a "finished" piece, that happens to be one of the reasons I chose oils rather than watercolors. I rarely get things right the first time, and oils let me go in and make the adjustments.

And to echo my advice in another thread, "Okay. Now get started on the next one."

Monique,

Absolutely splendid painting ! Great advice !

Just one small thing for me: I don't think I've finished a portrait yet without my wife pointing out that I've overdone the bags under someone's eyes - she points out that "everyone likes to be flattered". Perhaps you could soften the areas under her eyes just a little to make her look less tired ?

Simon