Johan picking flowers

[Hanna Larsson]

This is my boyfriend, Johan, when he was young. I don

[Hanna Larsson]

Close-up of face:

[Hanna Larsson]

The pattern I was referring to disappeared somewhat when minimizing the file size, but maybe you know what I am talking about. The deepest craters in the structure are not colored by the pastel unless rubbing it in very firmly. I

Dear Hannah,

I wouldn't be one to criqitue your work as I am experimenting with pastels also. In my opinion, I think it looks fabulous!! You have such talent for pastel portraiture as I have seen your previous postings. Keep up the great work! You seem to capture the sunlight on his head magnificently.

I hope you get a response soon from a professional pastel artist. It's been kind of slow around here. I posted a few weeks ago with no responses yet. By just looking at your work, I know that I've got much more practicing to do! Love viewing your artwork!

Melissa

[Chris Saper]

Dear Hanna,

Please forgive the delay in getting to your painting critique.

Your work here, as in everything else I have seen from you, is very accomplished, and has a professional degree of finish, which shows consistently as your style. So bear in mind that my comments are necessarily limited to really fine-tuning what you have already in place.

Composition. The pose you've selected conveys a nice movement, and the figure is well-placed. I like the way you have incorporated the ground of the paper with the sky. I can't tell where you intend to crop the piece. If you plan to fully include the bloom in the boy's right hand, I would recommend you extend the yellow flowered background in both directions, so that there is not an artificial "vignette" type of effect that shows in the framed piece. It's hard for me to see how cropping part of the large bloom will work since the strong color and detail will grab the eye too much if it sits at the border of the mat/frame.

Value. It' s clear that you have directional natural light, but the clothing doesn't observe the same light characteristics...for instance the wrinkles in the sleeves are the same value in all direction. The pants, likewise; if you had to invent the pants, you would need to either follow a believable light/shadow pattern, obscure them with an overlapping object, or change the composition so as not to include them at all. If you have some photo reference for the pants, look carefully to see if you can tease out some more information. The values on the upper lip and chin are too light for the light source's direction.

Color. Your use of color is very successful for most of the piece, but the red pants might take a second pass. The color is very saturated; and together with the drawing, doesn't reflect the finish of the rest of the picture. If you decide to keep it red, I would recommend it be VERY desaturated; it sits right against the green, and the complement is attention grabbing. The areas of clothing might benefit by integrating the colors, for example, ochres or greens in the shirt (sky color is already there).

The receding colors of flowers seem to be pretty much of the same intensity as the foreground flowers. With atmospheric perspective, colors show and disappear in predictable ways: as the background recedes, yellows lose their chroma, and drop out first; reds disappear next, and blues retain color over long distances. In this case, I would expect to see the receding flowers less saturated (grayer, more neutral).

Third, I am thinking about what is going on here. If you were painting from life you would (yep, have to be REALLY fast) undoubtedly see warm temperatures influencing all the downward-facing planes, not only in clothing, but in skin as well, particularly in a fair skinned subject like this. Warm color would bounce back up into these planes from earth, grass and flowers; your downward-facing planes carry the same cool temperatures as your upward-facing planes (the upward- facing planes would be correct as you have them, given a blue or blue-gray sky).

Edges. It's terribly hard to see edges on a little monitor, but from what I can tell, you have excellent edge variety in the flowers and hands. I can't really see too much in the face, except I have the impression that the upper lip and jawline are sharper than they should be.

With respect to the areas of paper that are bothering you, it's somewhat charcteristic of Canson, and very much an issue if you used the textured side. The only way I can deal with it is to use a stump to blend the first layer into the tooth, you just don't want to press too hard and damage the tooth. This won't happen with sturdier papers like Wallis or La Carte.

I generally find this is worst in dark areas, because it's very difficult to cover a light ground with dark pastels. Wallis (I think) is best for this, because you can underpaint your areas of dark, staining the paper without filling tooth. You should be able to get this ability with hand-prepared surface, much as Sharon Knettel has described in the thread on on MDF board ( http://forum.portraitartist.com/show...&threadid=2082), or Michael Georges, in the charcoal panel preparation he describes here: http://forum.portraitartist.com/show...threadid=2103.

Try this link ( http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&i...s+pastel+paper) to the google.com search page for Wallis pastel paper; perhaps one of these catalogues will ship to you.

Very nice work, Hanna.

[Hanna Larsson]

Thank you, Melissa, for your kind words, and Chris, for your input!

You are truly helping me to push it further. I really enjoyed your long reply and especially your tips on color. I must get my hands on your book.

The pants have been grabbing my eye but I thought that it was because they weren

[Hanna Larsson]

Now I

[Steven Sweeney]

I will be going over it again, particularly the field since that is bothering me, and all suggestions are welcome.

Hi Hanna,

I rarely comment on your work, simply because it is so extraordinary that I can rarely find any fault, and anyway I no longer work in pastel. I do think the "red pants" problem was there and has been very nicely resolved through advices you've said came from a Forum professional, Chris Saper. Many who haven't worked with pastel don't appreciate that things can be "fixed up" in that medium, just as they can in oils, and sometimes much more easily. It depends on the tooth of the paper you're using, of course, and how much you've asked of it.

One of my instructor's paintings, which I wish I'd been in a financial position to purchase at the time, included a field similar to yours. (His was full of the highlight of a U.S. midwestern flower known as coneflower, named for its shape, in various colors. I have several in my sketchbooks from summers past.) Since you've wondered what you might do with this, my only suggestion has to do with detail (based on the painting I'm thinking of). I think you've carried detail too far into the background. Every viewer will gladly "give" you all the grass stems and flowers in the distant background, and even in the mid-background. Don't work hard to carry that detail quite so far back. It's actually counterproductive, in that it attracts attention away from the figure, who is your focus.

To the same effect, soften that horizon line. Toss some greens up into the near sky, and some sky blues into a reflection in the grass. Keep it subtle, but soften the transition.

You've never posted anything here that wasn't just very very good and a pleasure for us to have a look at.

[Hanna Larsson]

Steven, I

[Mike McCarty]

Steven wrote:

Every viewer will gladly "give" you all the grass stems and flowers in the distant background, and even in the mid-background.

Steven is exactly right about this. This is a subject that I feel is very important.

If I understand your comments I would say that your photo was taken with more of a landscape setting than a portrait setting. This increases the depth of field to the maximum, bringing everything into clear focus. There is nothing wrong with this. But the burden is always on the artist to make the focusing adjustment for the viewer. As Steven suggests the background and mid ground should be just a suggestion of what you have presented as the subject.

I hope you don't mind if I post a photo that I took at the San Diego zoo a few years ago. If you will notice, because of the depth of field, the leaves just beyond the flower have begun to fade. In the distant background, the mind of our viewer accepts that it is just more of the same but they will not dwell on it. In fact if it were all in a more crisp focus, it would lead to confusion and fatigue for the viewer and they would more quickly move on.

As the artist you control the illusion, the viewer wants to accept, and will gladly be guided by you.

And may I say that this is a wonderful painting. I have referred back to it often for inspiration.