First lay in of color

[Patricia Joyce]

Thank you Debra,
I will try that today. It is Saturday and I have a whole day AND tomorrow afternoon - will be posting my progress....

[Patricia Joyce]

I am posting before I paint today with a question about the boy's face. The photo reference has no more detail than what I have painted. How can I made the face more present? I'm stumped...

Thank you
Patty

[Patricia Joyce]

here's a closeup of the kids. Everything is still very unfinished. i want to made the kids the true center of attention...

[Alexandra Tyng]

Patty, can you post a closeup of the reference photo and even an extreme closeup of just the boy's face, even if it is blurry? This might help with generating some suggestions.

Sometimes if I have to work from bad references I enlarge them a lot even if they are not detailed. It helps to look at a very large image to see how I might interpret the information that I have.

I'm wondering what the client expects. I think that even with little detail you can make a successful figurative piece with painterly touches of color and light. Maybe this would be fine with your client. But next time, you might want to think out the size relevant to the information in the photo, and talk to the clients beforehand.

[Patricia Joyce]

Thank you for your comments, Alex. It does help to look at it close up, even though it is poor quality. I know that the parents are not expecting a portrait. I do, however, want to capture enough of a likeness that they know it is their son. I think I have that, but am afraid to take it to the next level...

Here is a close up of the pic and here is also the painting so far. I have worked on the sky, sea, wave, a bit of the foreground. Am now working on their hair and am beginning to go into their skin/clothes before I work on the shadow and reflection. I would love your input, or anyone who wants to put in their critique!

Thank you for looking
Patty

[Patricia Joyce]

here is a closeup of the kids. Looking at it I now wish I had focused on jus the kids, but then, the parents wanted the whole scene, so I guess I did not have a choice. I still feel that the sky and sea do not look like the right time of day. I do plan on heightening the wave to our right, just haven't gotten there yet.

[Allan Rahbek]

Patty,
I have tried to remove some scratches to get a cleaner look at the face and sharpened a bit, hope that it helps.

About the shadow, remember that the blue is mostly in the direct reflection from the sky, so therefore the darkest shadow, where they sit, is warmer because of the sand color and the shadow at the left is mostly light blue because of the sky. It is that simple