"Princess" Leah

David Dowbyhuz · 03-09-2002, 09:59 PM

Yes, she really does call herself "Princess Leah". All of three years old, going on 18. This painting measures 28" x 29". It's my follow-up to the less than successful "Melody & Melvin". I had a heck of time with lighting this for photographing, and do you think I could get the balances right? No! (It's the best I could do for now. Still learning the myriad functions of my Nikon 995.)

What think you? Steven, am I at least going in the right direction? (Thanks to Karin for an earlier priviate critique. I didn't have the heart (nerve) to perform the full scale assault on the background you advocated! I DID make some adjustments, though. Compare this to the version I sent you.)

David Dowbyhuz · 03-09-2002, 10:01 PM

Detail

Karin Wells · 03-09-2002, 11:02 PM

David, I cannot find a copy of my critique or the earlier picture you sent me so that I could compare it with what I am seeing now...could you email me copies if you still have them?

Somehow, this picture seems so much darker than what I saw before...did you darken the background and/or the figure? Is it your scan or my imagination?

Steven Sweeney · 03-10-2002, 06:47 AM

Sounds like you're already getting advice. I'm waiting with you to capitalize on it.

David Dowbyhuz · 03-10-2002, 12:00 PM

It seems my scans above are far too dark. I'm getting some help "true-ing" them up. Will post the corrected version when complete.

Karin Wells · 03-11-2002, 05:13 PM

I got radical with your work. Here's a version of your picture after I "painted" on it in Photoshop. This is what I did and why:

I radically cropped your painting. You have a pretty good abstract shape here, but it got lost with all the other "stuff" added in.

I think that you're a frustrated still life painter at heart. The lamp, table and molding were pretty good, but don't add anything to this portrait.

I cooled all of the background so that it would recede. I did not take the time to "ground the figure" (indicate a floor). I think that the only purpose of a background in a portrait is to enhance the figure.

I lightened the whole thing. The contrast between light and shadow on the face and hands is too great...the value range needs to be much less.

I lightened all of the shadows in the general area of light so that none of them were as dark as the shadows in areas of general shadow.

I lost and found some edges here and there. I tried to integrate the figure into the background more.

I smoothed out the skin tones - I found them too choppy for such a little girl.

I added warmth (red) into all of the skin's shadows.

I added pure color into your reflected lights and darkened the value. This insures that they will not compete with any value contained in the area of general light.

I cooled your halftones (where light meets shadow).

I added cast shadows to the eyeball beneath the upper lid.

I slightly blurred details in the shadow side. Sharp details only belong in light.

Karin Wells · 03-11-2002, 05:21 PM

Here is a face detail...

It is a funny thing... but I think that each of us would approach the same subject matter with an entirely different vision.

It would be fun to see what another artist would do with this....

Steven Sweeney · 03-11-2002, 08:04 PM

Dave,
You previously asked me for some input here, but there's very little I can add to Karin's thoroughgoing examination of the elements in your picture. (I've recently acquired the ability to PhotoShop web images, but I'm glad Karin got to this one before I did, because I have little skill with the software.) I would mostly reiterate some of the advices already offered.

The lamp and table, as Karin indicated, are problematic compositionally and thematically, not because of the way they're rendered (indeed, they're painted very competently). There isn't a good answer here to the question, "Why are these elements included in this particular picture?" I will presumptuously say that you included them because you wanted to experiment with a picture that "contained its own light source". Those are often fascinating works (one of my favourites is van Honthorst's The Denial of Peter) [I've just discovered that the site doesn't accept hyperlinked contact, so go to www.artsMIA.org and search for "Honthorst"], but to be most successful, the light source would be something we'd "expect" to see in this particular painting (as we'd expect to see the candlelight, and not a modern lamp, in van Honthorst's picture). And so, in a different composition -- say, in a nursery or a setting that is obviously a little girl's room -- a lamp of a design that we'd identify as belonging in a children's environment might well have worked fine. That's the thematic part, but there's a compositional challenge as well, because the very nature of that self-illuminating element means that the greatest contrast between lights and darks in the picture is going to be at and around that light source, which is to say that that area and no other is going to wind up being the focus of interest in the picture. If, as in your composition, the light source is quite apart from the "real" subject -- the little girl -- we find ourselves looking at the lamp first, and then at the girl, illuminated in both a low key and a narrow range of values. And even if that key and range were manipulated to bring the girl into greater visibility and interest, there remains the "duality" of subject, the lamp and table having nearly the same "weight" as the portrait subject.

Karin's itemization of elements to look at is so complete that I really can't add anything else to it.

By the way, in your original post, you referred to your "less than successful 'Melody & Melvin'. Quite the contrary -- it was most successful, though perhaps not in the way you expected. Deepak Chopra writes that the very best thing that can happen in your life is what's happening right now. Consider how much you learned in making that picture and, yes, even in wading through the critiques. The piece was completely successful, insofar as it provided the experience and information to move on to another picture, which in turn will beneficially inform your later work. If there wasn't any challenge, there wouldn't be any education and there wouldn't be any fun.

Steven

David Dowbyhuz · 03-11-2002, 08:08 PM

Thanks, Karin. I noticed you forgot to sign it.

I appreciate what you've done, but I still like mine better. I prefer the sense of time & space in mine. I didn't want a nebulous vignette. What you

David Dowbyhuz · 03-11-2002, 08:16 PM

detail