Ethan

[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

[Chris Saper]

Here's one more thought..if the highest value contrast is at the bottom of the teeth, the eyes will be lost.

[Olena Babak]

Chris,
I can see what you saying

[Chris Saper]

Olena,

My only suggestion is to keep the value of the open mouth as close as you can to the value of the teeth. There is realy a lot of space between each of his teeth, which will contribute to the challenge, so I'd try to keep the values between the teeth even lighter than the value of the open mouth. Keep the edges of he teeth very soft.

Good luck!

[Olena Babak]

I appreciate the advise. I will consider this when I will get to the canvas.