Two sisters
 

My latest portrait, mother's approval pending.
Oil on linen.
Ilaria

Oh, Ilaria! This is really something special.

What are the dimensions? Can we see closeups? I would especially like to see some of their faces, hands, feet, and the kneeling/sitting sister's lap and knee area. Thanks.

Grate job thus far. I hope you take this to the limit and beyond. I can see you are enjoying this one.

Alex, you ARE a demanding woman! :D

Right, now, the dimensions are 76x125 cm.

Here are some details. I have at the moment deliberately painted very loosely: the piece is quite big, so it needs to be seen from a distance, no need for details. I might add a little more work but I don't want to loose its freshness.
I could not paint live as the girls were absolutely not in sitting mood, but I find there is a live sitting feeling to it.
I kept the background plain as the girls are very thin and with not particularly striking colors, therefore I thought to limit the chroma explosion to their clothes, which I selected carefully.

The girls did not interact while I was there, so it came naturally to me to paint them separate. My own reaction to the painting is that the eyes ping pong between the two faces, one beautiful and innocent and unaware, the other almost confrontational.
I broke the rule: nothing particular happening on the diagonals to unify the two sitters, but I just could not bend their poses to the design, that is why I resolved to stress the psychological aspect.

I am waiting for the painting to ripen in my studio and suggest me what more there is to do, but since I am short of time, any suggestion is welcomed
Ilaria

Ilaria, even though there is a ping pong effect, I feel they are united. This is sort of weird, but the blue streak of the wall points to the smaller child, who in turn by her pose leads to the older girl's foot an up. I see this U thing happening, so even though the sisters are separate, there is still unity.

I like this painting, there are definitely some tensions and it makes me want to respond to what might be going on in their relationship. Where is Freud when you need him? :)

Sorry if I was demanding, Ilaria. The closeups are worth it, though. Thank you so much for describing your thought processes. It is fascinating to me to hear what you go though when you are weighing all the factors (composition, color, etc) and designing the painting. Your concept comes across clearly, yet it is not easy to put into words all the subtleties you have considered. I really admire your work.

The only things I see at this point are: 1) the seated girl's forearm shape seems slightly off, along with the articulation of her hand and wrist; and 2) the crease of her pants at the knee seems to go too far forward into her knee, making her kneecap too narrow--but these are things you probably already know.

This painting really excites me! I think it's going to be one of your best.

Enzie, Alex, thank you very much for the feedback.

You know, when someone read the section of a brain in God's cape in Michelangelo's frescos ( Sistin chapel), I immediately thought they had a pont. After all, there is so much time to THINK while you are working, that everything is plausible.

Back to my ant's artistic world, when I paint I sometimes decide, and sometimes just witness things happening on the canvas. Not everything is deliberate, it is a beautiful process to recognise event and try to convey them to the viewer.
This is more the case when working from life, when you deal with a reality that is changing all the time, and when the relation to the sitter is also stronger.
I am more confident about my work this time, but to be honest having two pretty girls as subject for once makes it much easier!

Alex, thank you for pointing out those details, I will definetely correct them, I have just did something here and there, but as I said having fresh opinions speeds up the process a lot!

Ilaria

Ciao Ilaria,

I have one overall comment since you opened the door by speaking the divine name "Michelangelo".

Look at the way he painted flesh - specifically look at the balance of warm and cool tones in the flesh. (And be sure your reference is pre-restoration, if your source is the Sistine Chapel.) The masters used various conventions, or systems, to turn form in the flesh - usually warm shadows, cool halftones, warm lights.

All of your fleshtones are warm, even relative to one another. This is the sort of subtlety working from life (what you see) and what you know (studying the effects of the masters) will teach better than any of my specific words here.

Boun lavoro.

Hi Ilaria, it's a great piece of work, which has that contemporary distant feel. However, i do agree with Enzie's point that the blue-streak area is pointerly - in fact i find it's taking away our attention from the two kids.

I also notice the hard line on the sitting girl's face. I thought reducing the length of the hard line by softening some of it, might help. :thumbsup:

Dear Marcus,
thank you for your comment, you are right about that line, in fact it has already gone yesterday: sometimes seeing a painting on the screen is very useful to understand what it is to be done!

Dear Mari,
thanks for reminding me this golden rule. Color temperature is something I always struggle with, even if in this case all my cools have vanished in the photograph. I will reassesss the painting with your suggestion in mind.
Recently I have added black to my palette, and it has helped me a lot in mixing cool tones, but I still have a lot to learn

Ilaria