Gail

[Renee Brown]

This is my latest commission. I know the general rule is no teeth showing, but the client wanted it like this and I think it turned out well.

Comments appreciated.

Renee

[Steven Sweeney]

I don't think you'll get into big trouble with teeth as long as you find a happy medium between a row of straight no-gap bleached pearly whites that shine out like a flashlight, and a hedgerow of the sorts of irregular off-white meat cutters and gnashers that the rest of us carry around. I think you're pretty well within the range, where the teeth are attractive but not overly noticeable. I suspect that the client requested this facial posture because it's particularly characteristic of her, so why not. I do note that you've astutely treated the area of the teeth as an overall shape, influenced as such by the light that is shining on the face, and so you've supplied a appropriately located shadow area on the right.

Drawing in the central features looks good, things in the right place. The muscular involvement in the open smile is creating some interesting shapes around the cheekbones, and you seem to have spotted those and incorporated them.

The photo/digitizing process hasn't captured the hair well, so there's not too much I can say about it. It appears that some of the first application might have sunk in a bit and perhaps the really jet black portions are areas where you've applied retouch varnish or perhaps a fresh coat of paint. Remember that the hair is, first, a form with volume, and it will be in light and shadow as conditions dictate. So even if the subject has a full head of very black hair, there are going to be a range of values within it.

A few thoughts, just thinking-out-loud notes:

-- Compositionally, it would have been okay to regard the point between the eyes as the "center" of the figure, which in this particular pose might have been placed slightly right of center of the canvas, rather than, as you have it, to the left of center. Usually an open "airy" space in this type of set-up looks better in front of, rather than behind, the subject.

-- Take another look at the ear on the viewer's right. The lobe itself, bearing the weight of the earring, is already unexpectedly far from the side of the head, and the rest of the ear just keeps going east. Covering up about 2/3 of the ear, about all that you have in light, takes the size back to about what I would expect to see. And if in fact this individual really does have such prominent ears, I'd make liberal but judicious use of all that hair to minimize them. (And in any event, there's too much light on that ear as well.)

-- The left edge of the forehead seems to rise just a little high and then turn an unexpectedly sharp corner to the top of the head. If that's correct for this subject, then so be it. I find that covering up about the top 1/5 of the forehead makes its relative size and shape seem more "typical".

-- Because the hues in your flesh tones are not very saturated, it seems you've been forced to depict the lightest values by adding white, which has resulted in a kind of chalky or color-starved appearance in some places. Part of this comes from the apparently large diffuse light source, which has made shadows on the face and neck pretty hard to come by, and without those darks to play off against, your value range in the flesh tones is extremely narrow. You may be able to spread it out (if you want to) by carefully isolating areas and shapes and comparing them to both adjoining areas, or other areas in similar value families, and asking, is this lighter or darker in value, redder or yellower or greener, larger or smaller than this other area, and so on, progressing from area to area. The flesh tones that you've painted are very delicately and beautifully presented, and I'm not suggested that you should go in and paint, say, Indian red shadows on the side of the face if you don't see them there. I am suggesting, though, that even a slight extension of values in the face, head and neck, a slight darkening of what would be your darkest shadows in whatever range you choose, would go a long ways toward enhancing the form of those features.

-- Experiment with keeping the shoulder nearest us more completely and crisply executed, rather than dissipating into the mist. Let the edges of the other one go soft, if you'd like, so that that shoulder recedes, but I think that the head needs a more weighty base up front, an area where it is grounded.

-- The neckline follows the anatomical form on the far side, but the nearer edge is ruler straight. It could use some curvilinear character.

Overall an attractive rendering of an attractive subject. Not having seen your client, I nonetheless suspect that you've gone a long ways in capturing the likeness and sense of her.

Best wishes,
Steven

[Renee Brown]

Steven, Hi. Thank you for taking the time to critique my painting.

The hair had a lot of glare on it in the photo, so the flat look is as a result of photoshopping that glare away with black.

I have had a good reaction to the teeth! Well, that is Gail's personality so it was a good choice I think. Mostly blues and who knows what else made it into the edges of the mix! That kept it subdued and pulled it off. Then a streak of white around the edges of the two front teeth and a tiny bit on the top of those two teeth.

Thanks for the drawing compliment. Yes, I got her likeness. For a while she looked a bit like Jackie Kennedy , but with some adjustments, the real Gail made it through.

That question of where to place the center was a toughy. The reason I chose the left of center was thinking I'd have more room for the light behind her for the background fill. I read one time that 99% of famous portraits have one eye dead of center.

Yes, her ear is like that and so is her forehead. She has a very angular face , even more so than I portrayed it. Well, we want her to like this, right? But, I do see where the ear should be darkened and redder. I still have the painting so I will fix that. Thanks for spotting that. Weird ear.

This is not dramatically lit, Steven and not only that but I have been criticised for making the values too disparate in this painting and told to soften them. Pretty confusing, all this different advice. Doesn't it all depend on the lighting? I see where these values should be more cohesive. I think that will sink in more as time goes by and as my skill with this keeps improving.

Thanks, also, about the shoulder and the softening of it. That's a good point and another thing I will address before delivering this painting.

Renee

[Steven Sweeney]

Don't be frustrated by different advice from different people -- that just means we all see through our own eyes and from our own experience. Far more important that you paint what you see than what I say. I might have entirely different comments if I were able to actually see the portrait subject in the particular lighting situation. Also, by the time a piece is photographed and digitized, adjusted and re-sized and e-mailed and all the rest, it's often a very tricky proposition to critique it. That's why I try to couch my observations in terms that encourage analysis rather than require adherence to must-do "rules".

I was in a studio for a while in which instruction was offered by two veteran teachers, both brilliantly competent realistic representational artists, who alternated giving critiques of student work. One day I might be told that shadow shapes were too warm, so I'd spend a couple of hours on that, and then two days later, the other instructor would feign hypothermia as he complained of the "WAY too cold" shadows. It was through that process that I learned to regard critiques as information for me to process rather than mandatory change-orders.

Best wishes,
Steven