Cowpoke
 

This is my son. I purposely picked this shot because it breaks all the rules for portraits and reference photos, but it just really captures him.

These photos aren't great and I am having a lot of trouble scanning them at a low enough res. I had to crop the picture of the painting. The painting is 24"x24"

Thank you in advance for your comments. Although I am afraid to mess with it anymore at this point.

Although I am not qualified to offer critiques, I am fully qualified to ask stupid questions.

Which one is the painting?

The top one is the picture and the bottom one is the painting.
Lisa ;)

Wow, this is my first submission for critique and I had hoped to get some feedback. I would appreciate any comments, thoughts, diatribes, whatever.
Lisa Cook

Lisa,

Don't be discouraged. Sometimes it takes a bit before people get around to commenting. Sometimes they just get missed.

I have a painting in the Unveilings section from September of 2004 titled Mike and Deb (little advertising on my part there) that I'm still waiting for responses on. :)

For what my opinion is worth, and I am a beginner, I think your painting looks very photographic so, if that is the look you are shooting for, then I believe you were successful.

Good luck with the valid opinions.

Hello Lisa,

Just logged in and saw this. Very nicely rendered. Have to admit I had the same question as Janel for the first few seconds. Your son has very pronounced dimples which I imagine would be one of his strong characteristic physical traits, and although suggested in your painting,can be a bit more emphasized without ruining anything. This is my thought,although you know better than I how the painting looks "in person". I also like the way you handled what little of the hand can be seen,and the way you toned down the red of his lips. That would be, to my taste, a good "translation" of how his lip colour looks like in the photo. I like this.

Carlos

Hi Lisa!

This is very nicely done. I like how you've softened his expression just slightly as well as softening the shadows under the brim of his hat so that we can see his eyes more clearly.

Not sure what you've got by way of image processing software, but mine (Paint shop pro) has a 'resize' feature that will shrink an image down to whatever pixel size you specify. I assume other packages have a similar feature? It would be helpful to see the reference and the painting on a similar scale... also to see the full painting and more of a closeup of the face. From what you've shown above this looks to be very sensitively rendered. In this case, you might chalk up the absence of response to not much jumping out as needing 'fixing'...

But since you've asked. . . you might consider softening the top edge of that reddish orange shadow along the turn (underside) of his right cheek. . . and possibly darkening his neck a bit?