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Old 11-19-2002, 06:07 PM   #6
Nathan Cremer Nathan Cremer is offline
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Joined: Nov 2002
Location: Mt. Orab, OH
Posts: 38
I think this is a good piece that has come along in the few steps you have posted. It is obvious that you having a great drawing ability by looking at her facial features. Everything is proportionate and in the right place, which is hard to do. As you stated, your love for the line is obvious.

To comment on the composition, I would say, she doesn't look comfortable. I don't know if I would have used that word, if not for you using it, but it fits. I'm not sure what she's resting on. It appears as though she's struggling to stay up. If you had more room on the left to add more background, I believe that would help.

As for color, right now you've kept it pretty simple. I love how you handled her left side of the face and I think you should try to incorporate that to the other side and throughout the painting.

Her hair and clothing, I believe, are lacking. It is a good start, but they need more attention to form. I do believe that as you spend more time on them, they will start to come alive. Pay really close attention to the values as you're doing both. Doing still life studies at your own home of drapery would be a good way to hone your skills in that area.

For your first attempt at color work, I think you're doing a great job. If you want to incorporate your line drawing abilities, start off the portrait with a line drawing, either in charcoal or pastel. Once you've solved any compositional problems and feel that it stands alone as a line drawing, add huge fields of color and cover up most of your line work and most of the paper, to get used to seeing your subjects as mass of color instead of line. This is hard to do as an artist, to break away from our comfort zone. I have the same problem with my work. But, the more we experiment, the less likely we are to fall in an artistic rut.
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