Next portrait

Patricia Joyce · 06-17-2004, 11:11 AM

I just completed (almost!) a portrait of my daughter-in-law which you can see in drawing critiques. My next project is a portrait of my son to complete the pair. Here are the ref shots I have chosen from about 75 photos.

Thanks for looking

Patricia Joyce · 06-17-2004, 11:15 AM

I really like the first photograph because it includes his trombone, however, I think if I did this one his head would have to be smaller than Christine's and the pair wouldn't make a good pair (or would they?). I definately am saving this one for a painting some day!!!

Not as crazy about no 2 and 3, but out of those I think I am leaning towards #3.

I also like this one, however I don't like the hand. This is a very familiar Kris gesture when he is in conversation, but for a portrait? I love his eyes in this one though! Do you think I could take out the hand? The lighting and his pose are very similar to the one I chose for Christine's portrait.

Chuck Yokota · 06-17-2004, 02:26 PM

Hi Pat,

My one suggestion in considering the two portraits as a pair is that they might look more unified with the poses mirrored rather than pointed in the same direction.

Patricia Joyce · 06-17-2004, 02:53 PM

Oh Chuck, I didn't even think about that. What else should I consider when doing a pair of portraits? I am completely inexperienced!! And I know I can get Kris to sit for more photos, and for live sittings.

Michele Rushworth · 06-17-2004, 06:19 PM

I would strongly recommend against taking out the hand and trying to invent the lighting and forms that are behind it (chin, neck, collar, etc). That would be an invitation for major headaches and greatly increasing the likelihood that you will be unhappy with the result, in my opinion.

I agree with you that including his trombone would take away from the idea that these are meant to be matching portraits, and I agree with Chuck's suggestion that they be facing each other. When it comes time to paint your son with his trombone I would include more of it so we know what it is. Looks like some mystery brass instrument to my musically uneducated eye, right now.

Of the two remaining photos I like the one with greater contrast between light and dark sides of his face.

Steven Sweeney · 06-17-2004, 10:09 PM

No recommendation as to whether you should do this, just tossing into the mix the fact that you can flip these in Photoshop to change the orientation as suggested above.

In this case, it also flips the light source, but perhaps that appearance of their both being lit from a common light source (between them) would not be undesirable.

Michele Rushworth · 06-18-2004, 12:12 AM

Bingo, I think Steven's got it. That's the one I'd do.

Patricia Joyce · 06-18-2004, 09:25 AM

We all think alike. I had the same moment of illumination last night, flip it in Photoshop!! I think this is the one I will use. Taking out the hand seems like a huge challenge to me, too!!!

Thanks Michele and Steven.

Cindy Procious · 06-19-2004, 08:44 AM

Steven, you can't be serious! Flip the photo?

At least you included a caveat that you're not recommending it (or not) - but as we all know from those cool experiments where you cut a photo of a face in half, and paste its mirror image next to it to get a completely different person, our faces are not symmetrical.

If you were to draw him as a mirror image, the only one who would see the portrait as correct would be Kris himself. Because you'd be drawing what HE sees in the mirror, not what everyone else sees.

Just my two cents.

Steven Sweeney · 06-19-2004, 07:07 PM

Yes, well, glossing over the asymmetry in the face would be at some odds with a tradition here of my gently pistol whipping people into not representing anatomy as presumptively geometric and generic.

But in any event, the "mystery guest in the portrait" problem is not uncommon, being one that affects any self-portrait based on a single-mirror set-up. The hair is parted on the wrong side, the lazy left eye is on the right, the body jewelry plots an entirely different constellation. If there's an up side, perhaps it is that the artist finally has a representation that he thinks looks "right," instead of that backward image that has always shown up in photographs. (In 50 years I have never had a photographer show my "good" side, which is of course the one I favor in the mirror.)

As an aside, it was amusing to witness my instructor's attempts to critique my self-portrait in-progress. He couldn't just look at me for reference, because I was now flipped in life, and he couldn't practicably stand in exactly my spot and see me in the mirror as I was seeing myself. Life went on, and no animals were injured in the making of the picture.

I did think of mentioning the mirror-image factor, but didn't for several reasons clamoring for equal time, including that the Photoshop flip has as its sole purpose the reversal of the image so it didn't seem necessary to say so, I usually overstate things ad nauseam and thought this time to pass on the opportunity (perhaps an oversight, in retrospect), and I know from experience that most artists will make their own decisions and proceed accordingly despite advices otherwise (I know this because such advices are rarely evidenced in later stages, which of course is the artist's prerogative.)

But you're right, I gave the idea only a 1-1/2-star rating, not so much because of the mirror-image problem per se, but because I personally would not want to be painted into the corner of being unable to have the subject sit for me again if need be, an opportunity foregone for practical purposes by working from a photographic representation I could not re-create in real life. I would re-shoot the reference photo, but experience further tells me that there is most often resistance to this advice.

It's all just brainstorming. Not all synapses fire all the time.