Portrait Artist Forum - Portrait #2 of LA Governor

Yes, Mark, you're much closer on composition in this one, though even in this piece, a few inches off the left side wouldn't have hurt anything, in order to move the subject's head slightly to the left of the centerline -- which I'd have recommended with or without the shotgun (the one in the portrait, not anything that's happening here at home). With that gun, the balance of weight in the piece definitely drifts to the right, and the subject needs to be backed up a bit for this to be as effective as it could be.

Let me make three notes, about lighting, color, value.

I don't think you've mentioned whether these paintings were done using photos as a reference (and even if they were, that doesn't bother me -- I do it, and many of the most jaw-dropping portraits on this site were done the same way). But photos are fickle and unworthy of blind trust: without malice, they distort distance, proportion, color, and value. (Sometimes, that's their beauty.) One thing that strikes me about both the Governor's portraits is that he appears as he would in a flash photograph taken in pre-dawn darkness. It's that "flash" lighting that's stealing from you some of the emotive richness of color and tone.

As examples, look at just two small areas. The shadow on the underside of the bill of his hat is as dark as it can be without being black, yet the flesh on the forehead right next to it is so full of light that it's a light halftone, not even a shadow. Where's all that light coming from? And the shadows cast by the subject's left hand (on our right) are not below the hand, as we'd expect, but directly behind and wider rather than diminishing in size compared to the objects (fingers) casting those shadows. The apparent light source is the flash from a camera, rather than the light from the sky or from the glow of a sunrise.

What if the sun were rising behind him? Some of those hills on the other side of the lake would be picking up some of that light in their highest elevations. The back of the subject's neck and hat, and jacket, the top of the shotgun barrel, would all be showing that light, more strongly than that hitting other surfaces. The colors slightly removed from those bright areas would be richer. What if the sun were rising in front of him? A different set of effects.

You have a seductive opportunity to capitalize on complementary colors here, too. With so much of your subject and his clothing in the orange hues, no one would have objected at seeing more blue in the elevation of the sky or the coordinate reflections in the water (that is, the water beneath the higher, bluer sky, the water closer to the subject.) Even the gun-metal gray reflections in the shotgun receiver and other metallic reflectors probably contained some of the ochres and oranges of the reeds surrounding the duck blind.

Lastly, values. If you squint at the portrait, the subject becomes not the Governor, but the shotgun, because it is between that gun and its surrounding values that we see the greatest contrast in values, and so that's where our eye is drawn. Lots of ways to negotiate that. Darkening and "blueing" the lake water will reduce the contrast, as will lightening up the values of the muzzle half of the gun as it is thrust up into the light above the shadow influence of the man's body. There have to be shadows on his neck, beneath that white beard, which would both add form and really give that beard some wonderful pizzazz (I think that's a term the Italian Renaissance masters used, later adapted to describe a colorful food group popular during televised sports, I hear.) There must be some of the same sorts of shadow influences on his forehead as on the underside of the hat. And lastly, the shadow on the underside of his left arm (our right) is dark out of proportion to the lighting elsewhere.

I said I liked the first posting, and I like this one, too. I like it a lot. I like seeing both his hands, as well as the fact that one hand is still "active", reaching for the gun. I like the slightly open mouth, the slightly protruding tongue, suggesting concentration and focus (I hope I'm seeing this correctly) [though the tone of that tongue could have been taken down a value or two, as again: where's all that light coming from?] I would have been pleased to have painted the piece and to have presented it to the subject.

Best wishes,
Steven