Portrait of harpist

[Brian McDaniel]

This is a portrait I did for a photographer I know of her daughter, a very gifted harpist. We did a full photo shoot together one evening. I wanted to use Rembrandt lighting techniques and she wanted to do some of that as well. Sort of a learning experience for both of us.

What do you think of the overall composition? I was a bit worried about having all that detail in the harp pulling away from the subject. I toned it down quite a bit to try to ensure that didnt happen.

The painting is 30x40, oil on canvas. I will post a detail shot of her face below.

[Brian McDaniel]

OK, here is a close-up on the face. I worked in many layers of glazes to slowly build up the color and keep a very rich, glowing, smooth quality about it. What are your thoughts on the colors used here? Is the blueish reflective shadow too much? Not enough?

Did I NOT do enough with her hair?

Do you think the background couldve been darker beside her face on that side? I wanted to get some amount of color in the background, and I was rather pleased with it. Had I darkened that area, there wouldnt have been anyplace to get any color into the background.

Thoughts and suggestions are always welcome.

Thanks

[Cynthia Daniel]

You might want to take a look at Connie Erickson's harpist portrait on the Stroke of Genius site and how she handled the strings:http://www.portraitartist.com/erickson/harp.htm

I leave it to the artists to give any verbal critiques.

[Chris Saper]

Dear Brian,

Thank you for the chance to review your harpist. I will try to respond to your specific questions.

Composition.
I feel that it is nearly impossible to avoid a harp dominating any compostion when it is shown in the position in which it is played. It is such an enormous instrument, and always dwarfs its player with its solid diagonal taper.That said, you can minimize its strength by using very desaturated colors and soft and lost edges in the harp itself. Its powerful visual postition can be further controlled by avoiding areas of high contrast with the instrument, particularly where it is farther away from your center of interest. With regard to the strings, I think that the perspective would result in the spaces between the strings narrowing as they approach the head. When they are uniformily vertical, they read almost as a screen. It might be possible to avoid painting strings at all, just indicating them in a few areas with single strands of light.

With regard to the lower left corner of your painting, the harp forms a little tangent point in the corner, and acts like an arrow taking the eye to the corner and out of the painting, so that is something to look for when you are placing the initial composition.

Skin Tones.
I think you have been very successful in your glazing to get smooth color and light-shadow transitions. Your light source appears to be warm in temperature; if this is the case, then you would want the shadows to be relatively cooler in temperature. On my monitor, it looks like you have placed some yellow-greens in the shadowed areas of skin, but I think you could go further in cooling the shadow (generally speaking, the same temperatue shift would apply to the harp, dress, and hair)

Because photos will "clump" dark values together, it is not possible to see whether the shadow cores are too dark...they appear to be a little dark compared to the value of the reflected light, but that may be an artifact of posting the photo. Conversely as you look at your original, the reflected light in the shadows may be a little too light.

Hair.
You have shown a nice soft hairline, which works very effectively.The hair next to the harp would be in shadow, while the hair on our right would catch highlights that would be relatively cooler in nature than the overall local color of the hair.

Background.
The value of your background looks very nice next to the skin and hair. Using the background color in the turning-away planes of the subject is a good way to integrate color.If you cool off the shadowed skin, you may want to also cool the colors in the background. You might consider extending the light area of background to the top of the painting, since the harp, head and hair are all on a somewhat horizontal line.

I am sure your friend will be thrilled with this painting as it has a very peaceful and serene feel to it, as well as a graceful pose.

Best wishes to you, Chris

[Brian McDaniel]

Chris,

Thanks once again for taking the time to give me a very detailed, constructive critique. Your points are extremely valid and really help me to open my eyes and search for those details that I didnt look for before.

You're so right, the harp hitting that lower corner is a rather annoying tangent. The strings, oh those strings. When I look at this now, the strings I like the best are the ones I can barely see, running up towards the top of the string bed. Hinting at the strings here and there would've been so much more effective. I had'nt even noticed how my background colors end about the same place as her head, forming that 'line' across the top. Sheesh, you have a good eye!!

I actually used a blue glaze in those reflective shadows on the right side. Over the yellowish skin tone in that area, it turned out a bit on the green side. I added a few more layers but I was a bit scared away from going 'too far' and it either getting too blue or too dark.

Edges. Thanks for enlightening me on those. Its something I have begun using quite a bit in every painting since this one. Softening up those edges away from the center of attention. Something that this harp couldve really used.

I looked through your new book and it looks great. I've been meaning to order it up at Amazon, along with a few other books. Just havent gotten around to it.

Thanks again for your help. Believe me, it has been very helpful. Hopefully it will show in the next portrait I put up here, which should be done in about a month or so. Wedding dresses = lots of details. But so far so good.

[Chris Saper]

Dear Brian,

You are welcome!
Thank you for your kind comments.

Chris