Please critique Ruth and Dick

This is a portrait of Ruth and Dick, taken from about 6 source photos. I'll post a couple, but I don't have scans of all of them.

The painting is 18 x 24 on canvas. The clients like it quite a bit. I struggled with it - every time I read something cool on this forum I went to apply the new tips, and it was like unraveling a sweater, and having to start over from a beginning point.

Because I got them in photos where they are not sitting this close, it was great fun inventing the pose, and creating that illustration-type shirt area.

I'm concerned that the background color was not the best choice. It's way slicker (not as loose) than I intended too - and I'm not really sure how that happened. Also I'm reasearching composition theory because I think it's a real weak point for me.

Thanks in advance.

Here is what I mostly used, though I got some shadows, some hair, jewelry, and other things from other photos.

I know that it's a bad practice now, but I didn't know that when I started. Like I mentioned in another thread I have a workshop this month so I hope my next post will be better. But if anyone can jump in with a critique that would be much appreciated!

[Kimberly Dow]

Lisa,

Is this a finished piece? Have you tried changing the background colors on the computer? I like it - it's illustrative. I would like to see some darker values.

Yes, it's done. I needed to finish it before the second day of this workshop, so I wouldn't learn something new again and have to start over (again).

[Michele Rushworth]

Hi Lisa,

Forgive me if I have mentioned this to you before but your portraits will take a quantum leap in quality when you take your own photos. These two reference shots suffer from many problems, the main one being that the angle of light is different in each photo. The color of light is also different, which makes their skintones too different to look like they are sitting together. The harsh highlights on the woman are also a problem. It looks like that photo taken with two different light sources (window and flash).

Your paintings will be much easier to paint (really!) when you don't have to invent light areas on the man's right cheek, or invent skintones that go together, or invent clothing that overlaps, etc.

I don't accept any commissions where I can't shoot my own reference photos.

[Steven Sweeney]

Lisa,

If your workshop with Robert Maniscalco is taking place in Detroit, then as I type this you don

What excellent feedback! Thank you all so much for your assistance and guidance.

Steven, red is actually my very favorite color, go figure. In my palette, I usually restrict myself to Venetian red only, to keep myself from going nuts. I've always preferred ruddy tones to vivid ones, so I'm trying to incorporate the vivid ones with deliberation. I have some napthol, alizarin, and cadmium reds I'll be bringing in soon.

Thanks for saying you've "been there." It's great to know!

I think Michele was dead on the money - the source photos were inadequate and I should have done a better job with those. I've learned a lot from this forum on that topic as well and I hope my next project will go better.

P.S. We have power - we're rural! Toledo is down, Detroit was a wreck, but us bumpkins can run the air conditioning on the cows to our hearts content!

[Steven Sweeney]

Without wanting to get into a skin-tones thread, put some Indian Red, Light Red, Yellow Ochre, Naples Yellow, a tiny bit of raw umber and viridian, and the white of your choice (not titanium, though, for portraits), and play with those pigments a little while. You should be able to mix dozens of flesh tones from those alone. Then you can add other dashes -- lemon yellow, Venetian Red, even Burnt Umber -- as you need them.

Keep your palette limited early on. I happen to hate golf (for a lot of reasons), but it's kind of the same deal. The other day I was doing the whole "50 Ways to Lose Your Golf Ball" routine (sorry, Paul), and I finally settled down and took out the hearing aids (they seem to affect my balance on a swing) and thought, "If I bring the squared club face back to the ball on the same line that I used to trace my backswing, 'they will come'." And that's all I thought about, on every swing. And wow, how it worked. I only sliced into the trees on every other swing.

Sometimes we get overwhelmed here, too. We reapproach our works with advices about values and edges and chroma and composition, and we hit the ball right into the sand.

Pick out one thing. Get it right. Get feedback. Pick out another thing. Work on that next. Do this all your life.

"Easy as cake!!!" my Mandarin Chinese tutor used to say. (Pie isn't much found in Taiwan. Moon Cakes, though, were ubiquitous and culturally important. Perhaps that's what she meant, after all.)