[Chris Saper]

Dear Mike,

I am thinking that you are asking for feedback here, so here's my two cents' worth.

I don't think you can make this compositionally successful, and I say this only because I am familiar with your other more recent work, which I feel goes well beyond this start (which by your description is several years old). Your three focal points (here I am assuming the girls' faces) are scattered across the surface without benefit of either proximity or connected values. In this way they look unrelated, so that the overall painting lacks a strong focal point.

The second and third girls are lit from a different direction from the first, which, to me, would be a confounding factor that I would never attempt. There are also strong contrast patterns and edges within and along the horses' coloring and the first two girls' jeans that become eyegrabbers, although these are factors you could definitely overcome.

I think the height of the horizon line is fine, as it calls attention to the level of the girls' faces. Perhaps I would just think about a counterbalancing directional, as the girls' positions are sloping down to the right; you might balance this with a horizon line that moves at an opposing angle, or even a distant mountain range rising from somewhere in the middle, behind the tree line, toward the upper right.

On the other hand, you have characteristically lovely individual photo references of the left and middle girls, which would make marvelous single-subject paintings.

p.s. Michael F. is absolutely right, you have dealt very successfully with the sizing and perspective issues involved in using three different source photos.