Ethan

[Gregg Claussen]

Please don't hit me too hard....but,
Lot's of portraits have the 'sitter' involved in action. Portraits of sports players prove this point. There have even been portraits of rock climbers involved with their activities.
If we are talking business, the most important 'aspect' is customer satisfaction, meaning a happy client. No reason you can't have a happy client and a work of art.
Photo #3 seems ready made for a painting, including the background. The values are almost 'ready made'.. The cloud bank in the upper left corner might need a bit tweaking or changing to maybe distant fogged-in mountains? <--just what I would do, not what you should do. If you do use photo#3, then you might want to give a bit more room between the bottom of the figure and the bottom of the picture. At least that way, it won't be even on both the upper and lower parts of the photo, and give the shadow more 'room'.
Very nice reference photo's. What camera did ya use?

Cheers and Good luck!

[Mike McCarty]

If I had to pick from these I would choose #3.

The problems you will have to confront are these:

1- As with all outdoor photos taken in the direct sun you get a flattening of the values across the board. This really kills you when you are trying to create form in the facial features. One way to mitigate this is by working large.

2- If you paint this exact composition on a 36" tall canvas your head size will only be 5.25". This is getting toward the minimum, certainly not large. When you combine this small head with the problems of not having a lot of value shift in the features you are beginning to meet some real challenges.

3- I don't know what type of camera you were using, but if it is something like a 5mp point and shoot type, you will not see much detail at all in the eyes or in the hands when you enlarge this photo. Even with a really great SLR it would be hard to extract much detail.

If you place these challenges in the hands of a really experienced painter this could end up being a fine painting. For us mortals it could be a real head knocker. My advice would be to keep the entire image loose and suggestive rather than trying to work a fine line. The background could be a real asset to that end. Keep your strokes broad and don't be timid with the paint. This is not easy when you're trying to capture a likeness.

This would be my approach.

[Olena Babak]

Thank you for taking time to go over the photos. I think I

[Marcus Lim]

Hi Olena,
I second the room's poll that #3 photo is a wonderful choice. The angled posture, and the balance of the figure makes it a wonderful choice for a painting reference.

However, i think Mike's advice here is absolutely something to bear in mind for this project:

Originally Posted by Mike McCarty

Keep your strokes broad and don't be timid with the paint.

What i'd like to add to Mike's words, is also to keep "movement brushstrokes" for certain areas of the painting, instead of having a smooth, finished look throughout the painting. This will definitely bring out the energy and mood of the painting, and that sense of satisfaction you'd be looking for.

[Ilaria Rosselli Del Turco]

Hi Olena, i just wanted to post this link
http://www.commissionaportrait.com/a...lio.asp?id=111
which I think you might find inspiring for this work
Ilaria

[Terri Ficenec]

Hi Olena--
I'm jumping in a little late here. . . jumping on the #3 bandwagon -- it's got just about everything going for it.

Looking ahead for potential problem areas, I'm thinking you'll want to be very careful handling that near hand where those bent fingers all end on almost a straight line -- if you've got other shots immediately before or after this one with slightly different hand positions. . . you might consider if there's a similar hand shot with 'better fingers'?

From how you describe the boy. . . these shots really reflect his energetic personality -- I bet this turns out beautifully!

[Chris Saper]

Dear Olena,

The biggest issue I think you will face is that there is no direction to the light source, and as Mike mentioned virtually no information with which to model values The second issue I think is the wide toothed grin which causes the child's eyes to almost close.

That being said, there is a great deal of artwork on your site that is quite loose and slightly impressionistic, and if that is the style that has drawn your client to you, you'll be in terrific shape.

I agree that the composition of image 3 is pretty close to perfect,including the grayed down figures at the right - they can act as a very nice visual "stop" - you might even reverse the direction of the rightmost figure to reinforce its compositional strength..

Ilaria's link is very helpful as well

[Olena Babak]

Thank you so much for all your responses.

Ilaria, thank you very much for the link. I think I got an idea for the next painting as well as some help for this one.

Terri, thank you for mentioning the potential problem areas. It definitely would be challenging painting his hand, but I