Firemen

Mark Gil · 09-17-2002, 09:51 PM

Hello, everyone.

I've been away for a while. This 20" x 24" oil, is of two of my friends. I plan to make prints and donate 200 of them to fire stations all across the country. All first response personnel can purchase at half price. I wrote the poem a few days after 9-11-01 and just sat on it until now. Thanks.

Mark Gil · 09-17-2002, 09:53 PM

This is the poem up close.

Michele Rushworth · 09-29-2002, 11:08 AM

How kind of you to paint this and write this poem! Can you post your original photo reference to help me critique the painting?

My first thought is that the light on the outfits is a bit flat, too even overall and somewhat too frontal to give much form to the bodies. Nice composition, though, with one standing and one crouching.

Mark Gil · 09-30-2002, 10:12 PM

Here is the photograph I worked from. Thanks.

Michele Rushworth · 10-01-2002, 12:21 AM

Now that I can see the painting and the reference photo, I can give you some tips.

The drawing is very good. The key area where I see a problem is in the values. The large masses of light, medium and dark values on the yellow areas of clothing seem to me to be too broken up.

Here's an essential trick for you to use whenever you're tying to work out what overall areas should be light or dark in a piece: squint.

If you squint at the reference photo you'll see that there are really three distinct blocks of "medium", "dark" and "darkest" in the yellow areas. The top half of the standing figure is medium in value, while his bottom half is much darker overall. The yellow jacket of the crouching figure is darkest of the yellow areas.

These large masses of shadow values are being broken up too much by the white light areas in the painting that I don't see at all in the reference photo. There are areas in the yellow clothes that are somewhat lighter than the surrounding fabric, it is true, but overall even the lightest areas in these shadowed yellow sections should be much darker, so that the masses hold together as large blocks of value.

Paint all the areas in shadow (which is most of these forms, since they are back-lighted) to be much darker than any of the areas in the light.

And there you'll have it. Nice piece!

Sharon Knettell · 10-03-2002, 12:46 PM

Hi,

Your overall composition is good. I like the gesture of the hand on the shoulder. However, the man in the mask is off-putting. The other collasped figure is excellent and meaningful. It would have been more powerful if the standing man's face was showing and holding his mask so that the viewer could relate to him better. I realize that this was probably not a posed picture; keep it in mind for the future.

Karin Wells · 10-06-2002, 11:57 PM

Nice composition. Type is sometimes difficult to integrate into a picture, but I think you have done it successfully. I cannot quite tell, but I assume that your background color is a strong enough contrast so that all your text is legible.

My only suggestion would be to knock down the value of the railing that the firefighter is sitting on so that this secondary element does not distract in any way from what is really important here.

Mark Gil · 10-21-2002, 08:57 PM

Sorry it took so long to respond.

Thanks, Michele, Sharon and Karin. I really appreciate your time and opinions. My attempt was to capture an apparent defeat. One firemen consoling his friend, while equally concerned with the inferno that has left them weary. Unlike the reference photo, I wanted the lighting to be extreme, as in many situations where emergency vehicles are flashing close by. I can see that if I would darken the darks in the suits, it would add to the drama. Thanks so much.

Mark