Chase & Payton - The Charcoal

[Michael Georges]

Thought I would post this as I work on it. It will be a full oil painting at 20x24 inches. I will post it at the completed charcoal stage, the underpainting, and the final if folks are still interested.

A special thanks to Bill Whitaker for very useful advice on mouths in 3/4 profile.

http://www.fineportraitsinoil.com/Ch...oalRevised.jpg

And some detail:

http://www.fineportraitsinoil.com/Ch...ailRevised.jpg

Chase

and

http://www.fineportraitsinoil.com/Pe...tailRevise.jpg

Payton

[Steven Sweeney]

A special thanks to Bill Whitaker for very useful advice on mouths in 3/4 profile.

Michael,

Would you be willing to share with us the advices imparted to you by Mr. Whitaker? I'm sure they'd be gratefully accepted by the large Forum audience.

Thanks

[Steven Sweeney]

Michael,

I don't really recall what series of turns in the Forum maze I took to find this post, but I now see that it came in during a 4-month hiatus I took on another planet, so you've probably already painted this one and cashed the check, which ought to have been large.

These are beautiful subjects and I hope you have a practice of preserving and framing your preliminary charcoals. (How I used to hate the practice of calling those "cartoons".)

Anyway, what a treat to see this (as I type, I'm not aware of having seen the painting, but I'll go into your website anon). The single thing I would have commented on was the slightly skewed-to-our-left attitude of the older girl's nose. It seems to have a compass direction somewhat different from the plane of the face.

I admire your willingness to keep doing the preliminary work. Too many practitioners give that up after the studio instructors aren't around anymore, and then they post in-progress works that need substantial re-design.

Cheers