I really enjoy seeing portraits either painted or drawn. However, I often fail to see life like transitions of lost edges with near values...where they bleed together...all over the entire portrait. I see plenty of hard lines for instance all the way down the side of a face where NOWHERE is there a match of values of skin and hair or hair highlight value matching skin...losing the edge...softening the face.
A highlight that falls across a hat or hood would transport across hat, hair and face in near values. There would be no hard line separating them. Where the light hits it will make values very very similar. And "lines" disappear. Where shadows fall on the shadow side of a face the values of hair (even blonde hair) and face become one and there is no LINE to differentiate the two.
I am not criticizing anyone's art, just that I am very surprised to encounter all over the Internet websites that contain beautiful pictures though flawed by their ignoring the above issue. I certainly cannot paint as well as many of these wonderful artists but I suppose that it bothers me that they have not discovered this yet. Is it because they are mostly using photographs? Still, one would think that using light to connect and soften lines would be instinctive. Maybe no one ever showed them this before. I learned this from Julian Robles of Taos.
If you want examples then please e-mail me and I'll post some pictures to explain what I am talking about.
I think that mostly it doesn't bother me that they don't do this, it just is rather surprising to see professional artists that haven't discovered this or perhaps have chosen to ignore it.
What are your thoughts on this? Anyone?
Celeste McCall 
Celeste McCall 
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