|
Denise,
Well, there's a fine figure of a man! A great subject whose character comes through immediately. No sign of psychological brittleness there. No matter how good you are, there's no substitute for really knowing the person you're painting, is there? This looks like the guy you'd want for back-up if you had to do something difficult or dangerous. Those are my first impressions.
From your post on the other thread, I was looking for a potential problem in the values in the shadow side, but I don't see any. The dark background and relatively isolated light source gives no reason to expect much reflection on the shadow side.
Daniel's observation that the ear seems small is correct, although I wouldn't have picked up on it by myself. It would be interesting to know what the range of ear sizes is relative to other facial features.
With regard to the flatness on the top of the head, on my Compaq laptop with Internet Explorer it looks flat, with a possible hairline right at the tangent. On the Mac with Netscape it actually looks like a slight concavity with the background well defined, clearly indicating no hair above the scalp. I'm not sure what to make of that. On the Compaq the gaze also looks slightly to the left (to my right), whereas on the Mac the gaze is obviously directed at the viewer.
I think the simple background was the right choice. The force of your husband's personality carries the work, and anything else could be distracting
Finally, I'm struck by the overall similarity in skin tones and color between my self-portrait and this painting, the reverse contrast in the backgrounds notwithstanding.
Very, very well done. It looks like your summer of painting was well spent
|