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This is a portrait of the founder of the Salvation Army (William Booth). Since he died back in the late 1800's I had to use a black and white reference photo. Total hours spent on portrait was about 10. I have just recently started a career as a fine artist and would definitely welcome any advice that would add to the overall enhancment of this portrait. I also attached to reference photo. Thanks for your time.

Reference Photo
 

This is the reference photo I used.

Bryan,

I'm curious if this is a commission? If so I would certainly invest more time into the painting. You have accomplished quite a bit in just 10 hrs. of work but with a few more hours I think you would present your client with a nice rendering.

Working from old photo's can often times be difficult so we have to draw from what we have learned working from life. One area that I think could greatly be improved are the edges, particularly where the hair/beard could blend in with the background. Upon first glance of the painting everything appeared to be a bit "stiff".

As far as color you might have a person of the same age pose for you. The actual painting session would only be to record certain skin tones that you could use for your painting.

These are my thoughts, however, I'm sure there are those within this forum that have much more experience in this area than I do.

Good Luck!

No one handles edges better than Chris Saper. Look at her portrait of Linda for a fine example of diffuse edges. Masterful work!

I'm still an amateur myself, so consider the source, but I see a lot of painters who add hard edges where there are none in the photo. Sometimes, even when there are hard edges in the photo, you can soften them to improve the image.

One of the SOG artists (can't remember who) says that we're not painting stuff. We're painting the way light bounces off of stuff. I may have butchered the quote, but the point is that we should move beyond rendering details, and paint the light.

Portrait
 

Mike,

Thanks for the helpful suggestions. Actually this isn't a commission, I decided to paint to paint this portrait since there are no color pictures of William Booth. Having someone sit to get proper color is a great idea and one that I will have to utilize in the future. Working from a black and white photograph can be tricky. I will go back and soften the edges of the beard.

Thanks,
Bryan