Bringing Back the Past

Mark Gil · 03-10-2002, 11:11 PM

I was recently commissioned to paint this portrait from an 8 x 10 black and white photograph, over 50 years old. The women is now in her seventies, she was 21 at that time. I delivered it, she loved it and I was pleased. Please critique.

Mark Gil · 03-10-2002, 11:13 PM

The photograph.

Steven Sweeney · 03-11-2002, 12:35 AM

A challenge well met, it seems to me. I'm sure the subject was pleased. I have "somewhere" an oil painting of my then-20-something mother (now 70), done from a similar photograph that my dad carried with him to the Korean War. It's interesting to me that I'm now involved in that vocation (painting, not going to war, thank God -- except vicariously, I guess.)

Just for future reference, you might have benefitted from darkening the background on the right side (not necessarily as dark as it appears in the photo). This might have created more of the sort of contrast that would have added depth. You were fortunate to have a photo depicting the subject in side-lighting, which you have dealt with well in the face and, in a more general treatment, the neck and shoulder areas. But if you squint down and look at the photograph, you'll see that the waist and underside of the bustline have quite strong shadow shapes as well, largely absent from that area in the painting, which similarly would have aided in the illusion of depth, of advancing and receding areas, without which that part appears in the painting to be rather flat.

Because of that fortuitous lighting in the reference photo, which helps so much in creating form, I might have followed it ever slightly more closely in two areas -- first, by not letting the "wing" of the nose on the shadow side get quite so light, and second, not letting that halftone come up quite so far around the deltoid area on the viewer's right, which, especially in conjunction with the similar halftone approaching from the back side of the shoulder, kind of gives the shape a pinched or ridge-like look, rather than the smooth round form we see in the photo.

If you get more of these commissions than you can handle, mail me some of the photos, okay? (On second thought, don't. At my current level of productivity, 70-year-old subjects might never get to see the finished work.)

Best wishes,
Steven

Jeanine Jackson · 03-11-2002, 09:53 AM

Lovely painting! Terrific critique!

Karin Wells · 03-12-2002, 12:54 AM

Nice job. Not only did you handle the subject matter well, the painting itself somehow has a "50's look" to it that I like.

Mark Gil · 03-12-2002, 11:29 PM

Thanks Jeanine and Karin for your comments. Great critique Steven... I agree.

By the way Steven, your self-portrait is great. Did it take you a long time to complete? If you need more time to paint, do like I do. Set the alarm at 3:45 AM, start painting at 4:00 AM.

Whoops! Gotta go, it's past my bedtime!

Thanks yall,
Mark Gil