Bouquet
 

Another attempt with oils.
12x16 oil on canvas board.

Hi Garth,

Not sure if anyone has mentioned this to you in any of your previous posts but you'll have a much easier time creating quality work when you work from better reference photos.

The photo you painted this from was shot with harsh frontal light (probably flash) and with the camera much too close to the subject, giving you lots of almost fish-eye distortion in the head shape and features.

No amount of wonderful color, drawing, brushwork or whatever can compensate for severe problems that stem from the source material itself.

Michele,
Thank you for your perspective. There is too much light, partly my tones and partly the picture. The picture is in a window opening (no flash). Oil is a fairly new medium for me and I'm learning with every effort.

Thanks again,
Jerome

Garth

Michele points out an exellent point regarding the camera in relation to your subject. At this range and with your lense (I suspect a 55 m) you will get distortion. Try backing up using directional light with fill and if possible use a 70 - 90m lense. This will help a lot.

The main point would be backing up and directional lighting (off left or right of center to your subject). I think you'll see a big difference when you can improve your source material.

For what it's worth, Garth, I really like this. It's a non-traditional, non-coventional approach that reminds me of Warhol, some Hockney, and early experiments of some Impressionists when they were influenced by oriental art and the articulation of form with flat planes of color. The flattened plane of the face plays off very well against the negative space around it. -- John C.

Hi Garth ,

Per your conversation with Michele, I've moved this thread over to critiques.

To say there is a paucity of heroes in the field of contemporary representational art is an understatement. We often point to some as I have, like Hockney or Warhol for some refreshing insight . I think the root of the problem is that much of contemporary realism is, in my opinion, derivative and trite, no matter how skillfully it is done. However to mistake Hockney's crudeness for real artistic merit, in my opinion is wrong and misleading. The "flattening out" of form was copied from Asian art . European artists, especially the French in the mid to late 19th century were very much influenced by this. But Asian art of that era was not crude, it was highly refined, it is only the western interpretations that became crude.

I think your attempt to find your way defining your view of representational art is commendable. You show a wonderful and original design sense. However It seems to me you have jumped ahead a few steps without doing the basic ground work. You have to work on your basic skill, IE. working from life, monochromatic studies. etc. or your paintings will always look like they were rendered from photos.

I just posted a course of study in the Works in Progress thread for Cynthia Leininger called Jay-Wip. I think this would be of great benefit to you.

There are no real shortcuts to excellence.

I don't seem to be able to quote posts w/ my control. But I agree with Sharon K's comment on "No Shortcuts" in learning. Sometimes I find I am more ready to absorb certain material than others. And there are times that I simply just " don't get it" which takes a lot of leaps of faith to keep pressing until there is a "Ah" moment.