First Commission

[Allan Rahbek]

Matthew,
You have come a long way with this drawing, maybe even longer than you had to go.
I like the landscape and the grouping of flowers around the girl, there are such good variation and energy in the drawing of edges, lost and found, soft and hard. But it seems as you work more freely with the less important parts than with the face ( that's quite normal for most of us).
Beside the suggestions from Mischa I have two suggestions for you: Her left shoulder ( at the right ) looks to high when I compare with the neckline, and the bouquet she holds could need some cast shadow to bring it forward.

[Alexandra Tyng]

Matt, I think this is a very fine effort for your first commission. The price seems right. I especially like the shading strokes you have used on the pants and in the background because there is a relaxed, descriptive quality to them.

I wanted to add something to the suggestions already given: In addition to the lack of light/shadow modeling in the girl, there is a thin area of very dark shading right around her form, especially near the bottom half of the drawing. It looks as if you felt the need to accentuate the edge of her body and to differentiate it from the background. The girl and the background are rather flat (undifferentiated in value) with a wrinkle of very dark folded-in space between them. If you squint, you will see the problem.

I would like to know how you envisioned this drawing before you began. Did you think about how you were going to model form? Did you want the lighted areas to stand out dramatically from the shadows, or did you want to keep the values within a close range? If you worked from a photo, did your reference give you the exact information you needed to carry out your goal? Were you dissatisfied with the flatness of the form and trying to bring the girl out from her surroundings?

Even if the value range is small, you can still model form as per the suggestions above. If you achieve a convincing roundness in the figure, you will not need to accentuate the outline of the figure or differentiate it from its surroundings to an unnatural degree. The shadow side of the figure can merge into the background with the use of a soft edge, yet the viewer will still "know" where the shirt ends and the background begins. The light side will come forward naturally. You will not need this ultra-dark shaded area around the figure.