Thanks for your patience, learning to use Photoshop without a book is like trying to fly an airplane without any lessons. Hope this works.

Alicia

:thumbsup: Your skin tones look lovely.

How large is this painting? What medium is it in?

Hi Karen,

I greatly admire your work. Thanks for the reply. The painting is 20x24 oil on linen and she does have eyes this blue. Any other suggestions would be appreciated. I need to get better on painting hair.

Thanks,
Alicia

If you want to learn to paint great hair (or anything else) find an Old Master painting and copy/trace it. You have a lot of talent and I believe that skill is something that you can build rather quickly by doing this. I have made a LOT (maybe too many :)) posts on this subject.

:) Thanks for your comments Karen. I find myself going a lot to Bougeaureau to look at his work, skin tones etc. That is a good idea, I will try to find time to copy one of his works.

Thanks,
Alicia

This is just a small detail, but I believe the iris of the eye on the left is off-center. Other than that, it is very nice work!

Thanks Susan. It didn't seem that way when looking at the original, but it may be. I have some problems with getting the irises the same size in both eyes. Hope to get better with more work. I always seem to have to do more work with the models right eye, either too high or too low.

Thanks again. I have only been doing portraits for about a year and a half.

Alicia

After I thought about it, I realized I meant to say the pupil, not the iris. Sorry about that.:oops:

I've only been doing portraits for a short time also. Keep up the good work!

Susan

That's ok, I knew what you meant. I try all the tricks to see the real portrait. Like looking at the portrait through a mirror and turning it upside down, maybe I missed the pupil. Anyway thanks for the support.
Alicia

Hi Alicia,

My wife has a hard time with eyes too some times. One of the tricks we've learned to help us correct a problem is to use Photoshop as a tool to compare your painting to your original photo.

Now, the trick to this is that you need a photo of your painting and usually artists don't get the photos taken until they're finished. So, a digital camera for this would work best.

Take your original photo and your painting photo and scan both images into your computer. then, using Photoshop, place your painting photo over your original photo. Then, decrease the opacity of your painting layer. This will give you a tracing paper effect. It will allow you to compare the accuracy of your drawing to the actual photograph. It will really show you exactly where your technical errors are.

:) John

:sunnysmil Thanks for the awesome tip John. I have been relying on my "eye" for this and measuring and remeasuring and sometimes repainting and I'll be darned if it isn't always the models right eye. I am now aware of it and try to be careful. I will definitely try the photoshop tip on my next portrait. Thanks a million.

Alicia