Portrait of Sara

Linda Ciallelo · 05-22-2002, 10:46 PM

Please critique,This is 18x24, oil on linen panel.

Michael Georges · 05-23-2002, 09:06 AM

Linda:

You and I have discussed this portrait on the SP forum, so you know that I really like it. It appears to be almost "lit from within".

I guess that my only comment would be that some of the value variations in the piece are not taken very far. So, while the whole painting looks quite 3dimensional, parts of it appear flatter than others - parts of her hair for example appear flat while other parts appear more rounded and full. The garment is great! The pose and expression are perfect for a very quiet thoughful piece - it looks like she is listening to a story read by someone off canvas.

Remind us again of what colors you used to paint this?

Linda Ciallelo · 05-23-2002, 09:31 AM

Hi Michael, y

Yes, I agree that there are parts that look flatter than others. I'm not totally pleased with the background and the hair. I will muster up the courage to paint on it again when it's completely dry. When one has something worth saving on the canvas, it's always scary to put more paint on it, lest you ruin what you already have.

I have been struggling with color for a very long time. I have found, through studying the work of Velasquez, Zorn, Degas, Cassatt,Klimt, and other painters of long ago, that my work comes together better if I stick to a palette that contains only earth red (like red ochre or terra rosa), earth yellows (like yellow ochre, raw sienna, lemon ochre, etc.), umbers (like burnt umber, raw umber, turkey umber) and black. I am also using Holbeins foundation greenish and foundation umber. Plus one of the best colors I have found for mixing is unbleached titanium. It's very warm and very opaque. Many of those colors that I just mentioned are convenience colors. I could actually mix them using just red, yellow, black, and white.

In this particular painting the warm areas of the shirt are burnt umber (pink) and the cool areas are foundation greenish (turkey umber or green). In this warm palette black will appear to be bluish, and is used as my blue. Black + yellow will make green. Black + red will make purple. It's an illusion, but it works well.

Green ochre (yellow green) is also permitted with this palette, if you need it for something.

Michael, I did not realize that you were Verdaccio. I had to go back and look at the thread. I have enough trouble keeping names straight in the real world. In this world everyone has at least two names. I get confused.

Michael Georges · 05-23-2002, 10:36 AM

Quote:

Michael, I did not realize that you were Verdaccio. I had to go back and look at the thread. I have enough trouble keeping names straight in the real world. In this world everyone has at least two names. I get confused.

Linda:

Yes, in the beginning I signed on to everything using a username because that was what I was used to. I need to remove those accounts and re-up on them with my own name.

Mari DeRuntz · 05-23-2002, 11:44 AM

I think you've chosen and carried off a beautifully different perspective. It seems to allude to the not-yet-pigeon-holed essence of youth, if that makes sense.

I also love the subtle but very real form of the shirt; beautiful warms and cools, beautiful palette.

Don't be afraid to continue the painting, if you feel that there's more to work on. But don't continue if you don't feel there's anything else to learn from this piece.

I highly recommend a simple, short book that Chris Saper referred to somewhere on this forum. It's called "Art and Fear" by David Bayles & Ted Orland. "The function of the overwhelming majority of your artwork is simply to teach you how to make the small fraction of your artwork that soars."

I find many passages in this painting that soar.

Mari DeRuntz · 05-23-2002, 11:46 AM

I forgot to add, the only thing that seems a little off is there doesn't seem to be enough headroom; a couple inches of background on top of and underneath the figure might help the viewer enter the piece and linger more comfortably.

Beautiful work!

Linda Ciallelo · 05-23-2002, 12:01 PM

Mari, Thank you for the kind words. I have a terrible time trying to figure out what to do with the background, so maybe I have a tendency to fill the space with the figure. Or I see the empty space as being equal in size, and weight, to the geometric structures of the piece.

In other words, the empty space should equal, not exceed the space that the head and the body take up. I see the whole canvas as a geometric pattern, allowing just enough empty space to balance the figure. I see my still lifes that way also. Actually I do people as if they were props in a still life.

Mari DeRuntz · 05-23-2002, 12:16 PM

I've bookmarked your webpage; your still lifes are beautiful examples of folded fabric, and I can feel the textures. Do you have other examples of portraits?

Linda Ciallelo · 05-23-2002, 04:50 PM

I have pastel portraits but this is my first oil portrait that has pleased me. Did you scroll down on my webpage? There is a couple of people pastels at the bottom. I never actually finished the background on the boy, and the other two were done as Christmas cards. It's been a little over a year since I decided that oil is the way to go, and I have been struggling to make it work for me ever since. The material on my webpage is from "before" I started the "oil" quest. There is a pastel portrait on Wet Canvas that I posted last December. I believe that you could do a search over there and find it.

I'm hoping that this one will be the first of many.

Anne Hall · 05-23-2002, 11:02 PM

Congratulations on a lovely painting.

I like your placement of the figure on the canvas. I recently heard that compositional style referred to as "edgy." Once I grasped that the term "edgy" was meant literally and not metaphorically I understood it better! Here in Atlanta, it is considered a more contemporary approach.