Portrait in Formal Dining Room

[Michele Rushworth]

Sargent (pretty much my favorite artist, if people haven't noticed) dropped a lot of values completely to black.

I studied an original of his not long ago in a museum which consisted of a man dressed in black on a black background. There was no differentiation between the figure and background in much of the area where the body would have been. I didn't have a problem with his use of values like that. I liked the drama of the piece and the sense of the figure emerging out of the mysterious shadows.

Michele, I think the bottom one might be just the eensiest bit different. Does the corner of the mouth seem a little higher in relation to the center? The eyes and eyebrows are the same, but the position of the mouth is subtly different. I think it's a little more pleasant, yes.

[Elizabeth Schott]

Michele,

Being one that likes to play too, and just in case you were not going to have time to re-shoot I wanted to give you to of my thoughts.

I think everyone has given you great input. I do just shoot black and white now, and it has helped me a lot.

One thing I noticed in addition to the "formal" dinning room which usually translates into busy - is there is a ton of intense color in the same value and hue which is confusing to the eye. Since she is holding the red roses this adds even more directional questions for me.

I did two simple modifications to the one you changed. This first one is just lowering the light and saturation of the background color plus dodging the shadows on the dark edges just a hair.

[Elizabeth Schott]

This second one I took the elements in the background to our left and suggested them with color, keeping the idea of the window but trying to silhouette her figure better. I kept the drape and vase.

I think they like the gold on the left but it is so distracting from their lovely daughter, I sure you could convince them she is far more valuable.

Good luck!

[Michele Rushworth]

Thanks, everyone, for your input. This will be a better painting because of all your suggestions.

[Chris Saper]

With apologies to all invloved, I made an error when I attempted to split this thread to separate the two discussions: one, having to do with Michele's photo, the other a discussion about one or two light sources. You can go here to view the continuation. Unfortunately I only was able to transfer Marvin and Mike M's inital posts, and lost several others from the two of you, plus Karin Wells. Please continue the discussion in the new place if you would like.