Marvin, as always thank you! I have printed out that whole thread and it will be placed in my lap as I work today. ;)

Color harmony
 

Beth,

You

Hello Beth: A wonderful start you have here.

I think that Steven is spot on with his comments. You have an excellent start, which has defined your form and gotten everything on the canvas. I believe that what you need to do now is mostly refining.

I am assuming that you want to keep it somewhat loose and impressionistic, so you choose how detailed and tight you want to go. The thing is, every time you go back into it and repaint a passage, the "saturation" and "finish" of that passage gets better because you are building layers of paint and refining what you already have established. I have attached a picture of a passage from one of my paintings - first coat of paint, and last coat of paint. There were probably 3 or 4 coats inbetween - each bringing the level of finish and saturation up.

The main thing I see is, keep refining your form through successive layers of paint. Watch the intensity of the colors of your background. I am with Steven that graying/value transitioning and softening makes things recede better than just cooling or warming them. As the flowers are quite close, you won't need much, but just knock the intensity of the colors on the flowers down a bit and make sure the edges are soft and they will settle into the background better.

Pay some attention to your skin tones and remember that you are basically painting cylinders, and globes, so you should pay attention to how the arms turn and the cheeks look rounded with proper value transitions.

I hope that helps! :)

Beth
 

I see some experience coming out in this work. The roll into oils will take some canvas - miles of canvas - is the old term to get a feel for the brush and knife. Thumbs you have used in pastels!

I sound like a broken record I know, but I think painting a couple of red/ green apples from life is a great warm-up. I believe working from life will show you how the colors unify (swap about) as Mark Twain used to say. The edge on the lighted shoulder is one of the best I've seen!

Concept
 

I looked again and have another thought. As you are becoming comfortable with your new tools and medium, think and read about the use of neutrals. Less intensity overall allows you to make one or two bold statements. I'd suggest you do a Leffel copy just for the learning that will come from it. I think that's his book right over to the left! Or here at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/AS...909528-3475017

Lastly
 

Beth, lastly, you will get better advice on this site than most. The reason these oil painters can offer you valid and helpful replies is simply due to the years of using the medium. It was JSS who said,"... you will learn far more by doing than you ever would from taking a class. PAINT!"

But he didn't conduct workshops.

Never mind.

Thank you so much for all of your incredibly valuable input! I wanted to post my progress thus far this evening.

Please notice I have not done the detail on the hands, hair or shirt. And have not finished reworking the pants.

Here is the full canvas:

I wanted to add how much I am enjoying working in oils. I can

Beth:

WOW, look at the progress! It is looking great! Keep refining, it is working wonderfully.

Some additional suggestions if you are amenable:

It is somewhat hard to tell from an online photo, but look at the highlights on her arms. Highlights rarely go all the way to the edge of the form - even though cameras sometimes represent them as such, so consider moving your highest highlight in from the edge and have a one or two value darkening as the arm turns away - it will be subtle, but it will make it look rounder.

Also, look at her far shoulder. See how the super bright highlight makes the shoulder appear to come forward? I know that your pic shows light coming in from the window which is why you have that effect. It works for the picture, but not as well for the painting as you are representing her outdoors. I might suggest that you tone down the highlights on the far shoulder and punch up the highlights on the closer shoulder. Don't change the form of the shirt, just punch the highlights as they are shown on the closer shoulder, and slightly gray the highlights on the far shoulder.

Dark objects in recession appear lighter and grayer. Light objects in recession appear darker and grayer. So the colors will be more intense as the form comes closer to the viewer plane and will become less intense as we recede from the viewer plane. This will apply to everything from her shirt to her knees.

Let me qualify that I am not trying to get you to paint tighter - unless that is your goal. It is my opinion, that the best paintings whether they are realistic or impressionistic, convey reality or an impression of reality by the proper placement of values regardless of brush strokes or level of detail or finish. There is a reason why Monet's purely impressionistic water lilies appear to stand out from the canvas (they are almost 3D!) - proper placement of values as the plane recedes from the viewer. He really understood color, value, and atmospheric perspective.

I hope that helps. :)

Mud
 

Mud is not always bad. A little here and there blended into your colors will knock down that intensity. You have pure color figured out and that's a good thing.