My wife Dolly

[Will Enns]

Friends,

Setting out on this road of portraiture is akin to setting out for Hawaii, only to discover one can only arrive there via rowboat. This is a surprising discovery, but not especially shocking unless one is 200 miles inland from the Canadian coast, as I am.

As one masters the skills required to row a boat through mountain passes, it becomes apparent there are other travellers destined for Hawaii. Some of them are almost minor gods in the world of portraiture who scarcely need row their boats at all, and who if asked, would probably insist they have not yet arrived, which makes me wonder why I wanted to go to Hawaii to begin with.

But when keeping such distinguished company,the joy is in the journey, is it not?

And so, I offer another humble effort, in the hope that my fellow travellers will throw me a bone of encouragement, or better yet, a slice of critique, medium rare.

This is my wife Dolly, a most gracious subject when one considers some of my earlier efforts. It's watercolor, about 7" square, and took two days. I know, I know, I'm slow. But I only have one oar, and often find myself pointed in the wrong direction. I know I am making progress though; these days, Dolly can distinguish that it is she I am painting.

So I beseech you, my friends, do you have advice that might make my journey easier, or at least quicker?

[Mike McCarty]

Will,

I was sitting in my easy chair watching the tube when a strong sense of beseechment came over me.

I am not qualified to give technical judgement of your w/c, although I would say that it looks pretty good to me. I would however share something that has taken me too long a time to get. I believe that the people who are now on the beach ordering drinks paint big. When you paint big you get to use another oar, pull in the anchor, and hoist sail.

[Will Enns]

Mike,

I'm delighted to discover beseechment is so effective as to attract the attention of a gifted artist like yourself. It's kind of like catching a twenty pound salmon with a fly rod.

On oars and sails as they relate to size of paper, I have never before painted this small. I did it here because I wanted to do quick practice sketches to improve my WC skills. I've done about 4 from this particular sketch - two were utter failures, the first one I posted was merely shameful. The only benefits I got was that I now know some things that do not work.

I've updated the painting in post #1 with a better one.

I do believe you could offer good suggestions if you were so inclined, as I am interested in comments on my handling of color in the skin tones, and color combinations of the piece overall. But if you don't feel comfortable, I will be content with the bone I got.

Thanks for your reply,

[Jean Kelly]

I tend to do a lot of teeth, I like seeing things that make me smile and feel good. I did a search on teeth and found a tremendous amount of info on rendering these very difficult little chunks of enamel. My first examples looked like advertisements for "Whitestrips". Or a visual of "Blinded by the light". Please accept this critique in the kindhearted manner in which it is offered. I enjoy your posts and art, they always make me smile. But Dolly's teeth can't be this overpowering can they?

Jean

[Lon Haverly]

Will,

You are a brave soul! I remember painting my wife in watercolor, and it is the hardest thing to do. My wife has a million different expressions which rattle around in my subconscious while I try to paint the one singular expression before me.

You did succeed in capturing a warm and vivacious personality in your portrait.

Technically, it is a very interesting challenge, with the back light. And watercolor, it is said, is a very difficult medium. I like your painting, even if it is a scosh overworked. Watercolor will punish you when you work it too much, an unavoidable tendency when painting someone you love.

I would suggest that when you paint a lady you error on the side of making the eyes a tiny bit too large rather than a tiny bit too small. Perhaps the eyelashes could be seen to flap out to the left of the left eye a little. It doesn't hurt to do a little flattery. It has been my experience that if you slightly flatter the eyes, it prevents you from paying them slightly less tribute than they deserve.

[Will Enns]

Jean,

When Dolly first turned that million watt smile on me, I went straight to heaven for a time. She still can turn a room full of nearly dead people into a merry celebration of life simply by walking in and smiling. People who know her well would never notice that in the painting her teeth are overly bright. They are accustomed to this phenomenon.

Only since I've started painting people did I realize that white teeth aren't white. Even Dolly's. And I do wish to be true to the laws of physics and light even when painting people who appear to be exempt from them.

After you pointed this out, I converted my reference to grayscale and found the brightest spot on those radiant chicklets is (I couldn't believe it myself) 40% black.

So you are absolutely right, and of course I do not take offense. The hope of receiving suggestions like yours is what motivates me to post.

Thank you!


Lon,

What a wonderful idea! I will implement your suggestion of flattery and I'm betting I will receive a payoff I can't write about here.

As I mentioned earlier, I've done several watercolors from this sketch, for practice purposes. Have even tried getting looser and quicker to avoid overworking, and to achieve a more traditional watercolor look.

But that effortless watercolor effect Jim Riley sometimes posts is more elusive than it appears.

As to my bravery, I have never made half-hearted attempts at anything. But painting portraits is possibly my most ambitious endeavor to date and it has yet to be seen if I'm up to the challenge.

How about posting one of those watercolors, since there is so little WC portraiture for those of us interested in the medium?

Thanks for taking the time,

[Jean Kelly]

I like your "stuff".

Jean

[Will Enns]

Thanks to those good suggestions, improvements happen!

[Chris Saper]

Hi Will,

I'll try my hand here at offering some color suggestions. I am presuming you shot this photo outdoors in direct sunlight, so my comments are based upon that assumption.

The value and temperature on the hair in sunlight look correct, very warm color, very light value. I also accept the hair in shadow on our left as correct. The bangs in both versions seem unclear in value: in comparison to both sides of the hair and the underlying value of the skin on the forehead, the bangs must be either lighter, or darker, or their form show a curve which includes consistent elements of each, as I know that red/blond hair can often do on a fair-skinned subject.

The face though, is completely in shadow. (No hint of light coming through the sunlit hair?) In fact, the entire portrait, except for the sunlit hair, is in shadow, so the shadow colors all need to be rendered in relatively cooler tones in order to establish a believable color unity. You've used dark oranges, reds and violets in the shadow. The purple shadow on the cheek on our right, in the nasal-labial folds, and under the chin read as too cold, and too saturated to me. Cooling your shadowed skin tones with green instead of something in the red family would have, I think, introduced a proper temperature shift, as well as more desaturated color, which would be the case in any shadowed circumstance. The fact that the sweater and background are green will make all of your reds appear redder, including the skin tones: using some desaturated green in the skin will also serve to help integrate the background and figure.

The teeth, and possibly the whites of the eyes still look a little too light to me, but this is in comparison to the surrounding value of the skin, especially the dark purple notes in the nasal-labial fold on our right accents. I do see, though, that you have begun to introduce some aspect of form into the curve of the arch of the teeth.

I have never seen anyone more masterful than Burton Silverman at using temperature shift to indicate changes in form, where there is very little value differentiation. If you don't already have Sight & Insight, you could treat yourself to a holiday present, here: http://www.portraitartist.com/bookstore/favorites.htm, and if you can get Breaking the Rules of Watercolor, you could get that for your wife. She'll still like it better than a new remote control.

Hats off to you for working in this very difficult and unforgiving medium!

[Will Enns]

Chris,

Thank you for these very insightful suggestions. I hoped you might reply on the subject of color.

Why didn't I think of using green? I added some along the jawline and any areas where light might be reflected upward from the clothing. I think it helps, but the painting is already rather overworked. It was never meant to be more than a practice piece to begin with. But thanks to the many suggestions, I've learned much, and it turned out better than I had a right to expect.

The reference has sunlight coming from behind, over her left shoulder, causing the highlight in the hair. The face is lit only by ambient light, probably cool sky light for the most part. This results in pretty flat lighting on the face, and I guess this means any modelling had to be done with color temperature rather than value. I admit the reference was probably beyond my level of ability, but I've always liked that photo.

Thank you for taking the time to write such a well considered color analysis.