Commission-WIP

[Barbara Mae Hudson]

Originally Posted by Garth Herrick

Dear Barbara Mae,

You have such a nice finish to your portrait that I hate to bring up what bothers me the most, which is the shapes and structures of the kids noses, compared to the reference photo.

On the girl's nose the shadow suggests a much thinner nose than in the photo. Also while the nostrils are placed exactly right, the tip of her nose is too low, which makes it an adult nose rather than a child's.

The boy's nose should be structurally more broad too. The shape of his nose is distinctly different in the photo; the one you depicted is a little finer.

On the girl's eyes, you can probably get away with eliminating all of the black in the lashes. There is no evidence of dark eyelashes in the photo. I would try to work on the shape of the eyes too.

On the boy's eyes I would pay attention to their shape and lack of hard edges in the photo.

There are minor refinements that could be made to the indentures making the expression around and under the girl's lips. I would also pay attention to the structure of her neck.

Overall, like everyone else has said, you have a very successful painting going. The kids hair is particularly well done.

I hope I have not been too hard on you. I think you are getting close to the finish.

Garth

[Barbara Mae Hudson]

Dear Garth,

It never occurred to me to turn the photo's to black and white.......what a difference! You can more easily see the tonal values and it highlights areas where you might be going wrong. I assume tha you do this via the Channel feature, anyway this was where I found the the option. I can't think why it didn't occur to me before!

I will be working on it again today and going through all your points in turn.

Thank you so much for your help Garth, it really is very much appreciated.

Take care,

Barbara

[Garth Herrick]

Originally Posted by Barbara Mae Hudson

It never occurred to me to turn the photo's to black and white.......what a difference! You can more easily see the tonal values and it highlights areas where you might be going wrong. I assume tha you do this via the Channel feature, anyway this was where I found the the option. I can't think why it didn't occur to me before!

Dear Barbara,

In PhotoShop, I simply used Image/Adjustments/Desaturate. There is more than one way to get there. Using Channels like you said, gives you even more options. If a color is intense, you can push it toward black or white or anything in between, by adjusting the color chanels before you desaturate. The method I used effectively treats all three color channels as equal. Another good option is to convert the RGB file to Grayscale mode.

Garth