Katie, from life

[Enzie Shahmiri]

Beth,

I love the necklace and the ring. Nicely done!

[Michele Rushworth]

Very nice progress. The hair and chair are greatly improved.

I would take another look at the direction the eye on our right is pointing. If anything it looks as if it's turning in even more than before.

On the dress, I would suggest you try to find something appropriate that she can wear that you can paint while really looking at it. The vagueness I see in the treatment of the dress probably reflects the fact that you didn't have something right in front of you to see how the folds and reflections would go.

Also the shawl over the right shoulder is so close in color to the rest of what she's wearing that it looks like it's part of her dress, but not drawn quite right. I had to check your earlier postings to see that it was a separate piece of cloth.

[Elizabeth Schott]

Thanks Enzie, I really love that ring.

Michele, I played around in PhotoShop with the eyes. It appeared that the real problem might have been with her right eye, I have a ton of reference photo

[Elizabeth Schott]

Here I have superimposed the lower set of eyes over the close up of the painting above.

[Michele Rushworth]

Still looks like the eyes are not pointing in the same direction, to me. (Anyone else get that feeling too?)

The photoshop changes you posted seem to have made the iris on our left much smaller than the one on our right, and made the eye on our right looking even further inward.

Either the eye on our left needs to be looking further left (if you want a way-off-to-the-side gaze) or the eye on our right needs to be looking further right (if you want a looking-just-a-bit-to-the-side gaze).

It is tricky, I know. I tweak irises over and over on my portraits to get them looking correct.

[Karin Wells]

I straightened her eyes and I moved the chin so it wouldn't be off center. I don't know if by doing this I lost your likeness but it was worth a try.

It is too late now that you're into this, but when your sitter has a lazy eye, blemish, birthmark or somesuch, try to adjust the pose and/or the lighting so that this particular feature is not so apparent. I think that it is not good to "correct" someone's face in order to make it look like we want it to look.

Ultimately it is much better to begin a portrait like this by posing the model to emphasize the good features and minimize the features that are not so flattering.

Here are some examples of ways to minimize unflattering features:

--Consider a profile view of a person who has one eye that turns in or a birthmark on one side of the face.

--If you are photographing a model who has a nose that curves to the side, shoot into the curve to minimize the distortion.

--To minimize a large nose, aim your light down the axis of the nose so the shadow falls under the nose and not to the side.

Etc.

[Elizabeth Schott]

Karin and Michele, thank you.

I am not an iris person - yikes, it is so tough for me, and so incredibly important!

Karin, I don't think you changed the likeness, I think she looks pretty nice actually. Thank you for the tip on the problem areas. Just learning from life, I noticed her eye really didn't start changing until she was really bored with sitting. It was hard to go back and forth, and not keep her from looking like a "deer in the headlights".

I see I'll be busy in the a.m.

[Karin Wells]

I noticed her eye really didn't start changing until she was really bored with sitting.

This is a really good argument for using a camera to capture a pose while it is still "fresh."

[Elizabeth Schott]

Here is the progress, still miles to go.

Fortunately like Karin said, I had taken tons of reference at each sitting. So I am developing her dress from one shot with a tube top on.

[Elizabeth Schott]

Here is the close-up of her face. I need to tone down her lip color and finish the hightlights in her eyes.