Help! portrait of redhead, skin too light?

[Jennifer Geary]

Hello pastel gurus!
I need help with this, please. This child has such pale skin, and red red hair, it doesn't look right to me! What is it that I am not seeing? Very frustrating! Any help would be appreciated! THANK YOU!!!!

[Jennifer Geary]

Here is a closer look at the pastel....

[Garth Herrick]

Hi Jennifer,

What a nice subject to paint. It was helpful to see your drawing with the photo reference as you posted it.

I have taken the liberty of a digital demonstration with your pictures.

Some suggestions:

Based on the color of your posted pictures (assuming it's close to accurate) the hair color you have rendered seems too red. It maybe should have warmer more sienna like tones. Also the highlights should relate better chromatically.

A: Should be darker, more burnt sienna.
B: Should be a real color that relates to the hair color.
C: Less spectrum red and more sienna.

Many parts of the drawing need better transitions.

D: Too light and too jumpy. Look at this transition in the photo.
E. Watch how his cheek transitions to shade in the photo.
F: Warmer and deeper in the photo.
G: Much deeper and warmer.
H: A highlight. Above this it needs better transitions.
I: Much deeper and warmer. It should relate better to the hair color.
J: Hair should not go too black yet.
K: Try to tie the colors better together here.

I know this is a lot to adjust, but I think it will begin to make it work better. Sorry if I'm being too heavy handed. Good luck!

Sincerely,

Garth

[October Reader]

Wow Garth, the diagram you created is so helpful in terms of understanding relationships! Could you do one for my piece down the road when I am ready to post?! That would be so greatly appreciated!

Unfortunately, there is the problem of digital distortions though. But it is still great to learn the lesson regardless.

[Michele Rushworth]

Part of the reason the skin and hair are looking too red is that you've put it on a very warmly colored pastel paper. All colors in nature look the way they do because of the color of the light falling on them and the color of the objects around them. The boy was photographed in a very cool environment (blue/grey sky, greenery around, etc). Changing the background color to something totally opposite makes the boy's coloring look off.

[Garth Herrick]

Originally Posted by October Reader

Wow Garth, the diagram you created is so helpful in terms of understanding relationships! Could you do one for my piece down the road when I am ready to post?! That would be so greatly appreciated!

Unfortunately, there is the problem of digital distortions though. But it is still great to learn the lesson regardless.

Hi October,

If you or anyone has Photoshop, this type of diagraming is not all that difficult to create. Just get an eyedropper color reading and paint a patch of that color wherever you desire. At times I have found it useful to diagram all the separate colors I need to paint a particular passage.

The attached image shows the amazing range of colors all in a soft green jacket I painted in

"Jane and Iona".

But just looking at the original reference photograph, you would not at first realize there could be so many greens needed to represent and convey the dimensionality of the garment. By the way, all these colors arranged in their original context read cohesively as "soft light green"! I'm not kidding.

Garth

[October Reader]

Jennifer, I hope you don't mind me sidetracking here for just a moment. Sorry!

I am SO glad to have stumbled upon this forum. The range of available resources here is just out of this world - all the way from the spiritual to the technical and to the pragmatic, and, of course the intermittent laughters are so very necessary as well!

Garth, I would be very honored if you could critique one of my paintings down the road using this Photoshop method which you demonstrated here on Jennifer's work, especially regarding subtleties in value. Value is my weak point. THANKS IN ADVANCE. And I would love to go on and on about "Jane and Lona" and your "52 gray scale" methodology but that would be disrespectful to the main focus here on this thread.

OK, back to you Jennifer. Thanks for letting me go off on a tangent !

[October Reader]

Jennifer, along Michele's comments on ambient lighting, I wonder if the boy's coloring would seem more convincing if you use some of the "blues-grays" already applied on his cheek and neck areas to create a background. Just a thought.

[Garth Herrick]

Jennifer, (sorry to have digressed)

You have an interesting and well lit, sculptural head to paint from the reference photo. The subtle nuances and relationships in shading and color development take time to work out. It may feel daunting but I think it would be rewarding to further work on your pastel portrait and explore these nuances more.

There are also a number of shape. proportion and drawing corrections that could be made and adjusted along the way. I bet the more you rework this portrait, the stronger and better it will become (maybe I'm speaking for myself because I rework and correct my portraits endlessly until they look about right).

With a little more exploration, I think you will hit upon a balance in the color relationships in the skin tones and hair, warm background or not.

Garth

[Sharon Knettell]

Jennifer,

I always seem to run into trouble when I stray from the background color of my reference, live or photographed. It is difficult from your reference to isolate a single color that would work as the background is so diverse.

A couple of things that have worked for me are ;
A) Using a complementary color, in this case a warm grey green to offset the skin or a slightly greyer blue green to offset the hair.
B) Using an analogous color. something related to the skin tone or the hair, a greyish rose. It would be a cooler warm color than the one you have used.

I would try to get an amalgam of the colors in the background as that is what influences the color in the reflected light. In this case solution "A" would be my first choice here.

Try painting pieces of paper with the different color options attaching them to the edges of your reference, step back and see what works best.