Would you paint this?

[David Clemons]

Often the distinction between what would make a composition great or just mediocre is lost on some people. Try as you might to try and explain to them how you can improve the design, it can fall on deaf ears. For a setting such as this, having the characters interact more with their environment would make a more interesting painting, not just in terms of composition but content. I'm sure you're aware of that, but sometimes it's a take it or leave project with clients. I've certainly done my share of jobs that I wasn't enthralled with. Depends on the timing. A project suffers when the people supplying you with the source material don't know what they're doing, or allow you to make corrections.

By the way, scenes such as this are often referred to as environmental portraits, which is very common in photography.

[Mara Schasteen]

Thank you, everyone for your comments. This posting, as well as the few others I have submitted, have all shown me the same basic flaw in my work so far - not thinking things through well enough BEFORE I get started on a project; thus, my first posting in the Reference Photo Critique section this week. I'm turning over a new leaf.

[Mischa Milosevic]

Mara, for what its worth. I think you need to re-check the drawing of the faces. For example the mans moth is not as it should be. Another thing even though you see the shadows on a face real dark, thanks to the photo, in real life it is not that dark. When painting faces the basic thing one decides is the local color and then how big the separations will be between the shadow and light. As you well know dark shadows under the eyes do not look so good.

First the drawing then the rest.

I hope this helps