My first submission
 

Hi,

With all my heart I hope to be painting full time next year. and to that end, any critiques and observations are much appreciated - thanks!

34 x 44" high
Oil on Linen
From Photo taken by me for the painting

OOPs!
 

oops - here's the image!

This is a striking portrait, Linda.

My first impression is the quiet drama of this young woman. You

Thanks
 

Thanks so much for the comments. I think I could have done better with the background, too. One driving thing is that the father (for whom this is a present) is a home builder, and the architecture of the home is supposed to be like a second personality in the painting, as it's significant to them. But it also breaks the mood.

I'll post the reference photos as you suggest.

Thanks again!

Linda

The pose is very nice and you have handled the paint well, but I feel you are being hindered by your reference more than your painting ability.

The thing that strikes me right off is the photographic distortion in the perspective. I may be completely wrong, but I bet you held your camera at eye level (about the same or slightly above the eye level of the subject) when you took the photo. And I would also bet that the lens was 50mm or less. This is exactly the type of thing I refer to when I talk about some of the problems you can encounter when painting from photos.

Now don't get me wrong, I think there are many good things in this painting, but I feel unless you address this distortion, even if you rendered everything else with complete perfection as you see it in the photo, the painting would still seem off somehow. Others may disagree with me and that is fine. I just see snapshot here, not a portrait that is equal to your painting ability.

Thanks
 

You're absolutely right about the distortion, and it's been bothering me as well since I've finished it. I should have used a longer lens so her front hand and the chair aren't so large as compared to the face and lamp.

Ironically, my father is a a professional photographer, yet I always get too caught up in the moment of all the things to think about and then mess up on an obvious basic like this. Do you think it works, assuming I would have shot this as it is, then caught it once at home, to manipulate the file so as to compensate for the distortion? I use a Canon E10 Digital camera with a zoom lens.

What is the issue that you bring up with the eye level?

Thanks for your critique. It's a compliment that you've taken the time.

P.S. It is sure many masters used camera obscuras, etc. How do you think they contended with the same problem as lens distortion?

Linda

Dear Linda,

Welcome to the Forum! You have said you plan to be a full time painter over the next year, so I hope you don't mind my taking you at your word, because that's going to come up more quickly than you can imagine! So please forgive me for cutting right to the chase here. You have excellent drawing skills and control over your paint already, so I wanted to make some observations about your process and early decisions.

Composition and value massing are the key elements that I think you should consider in future work. (To illustrate this point I've attached a rough sort of diagram.)

In this painting, you have major compositional challenges going on, primarily, I think, because there is no clear value scheme going on. If you squint at the painting, you'll see that there are a lot of small islands of dark - little eye-traps that fail to support, and actually work against your center of interest, which I am sure is meant to be this young woman's face. Notwithstanding the very observant points Michael has raised about photographic distortion, the network of bannisters reads as an almost hieroglyphic-type pattern that is isolated from the rest of the painting, and constitutes a bunch of arrows that actually lead the eye away from the focal point.

The darkest dark, (which in the overall value scheme you have going) is the swirled wooden pattern in the chair, which works as strongly as the bannister to remove the viewer from your center of interest.

The somewhat lesser dark that forms an outlined island around the lampshade acts as an eye-trap, noticeable, but visually there's nowhere to go after coming to rest upon it. There is another smaller island created by the (I assume) left edge of the round coffee table upon which the lamp sits.

There are other eye-traps that occur as a result of the negative spaces in the painting, which I would guess happened without intent. In the lower left of the picture, the swirl in the chair's wooden armrest comes close enough to the edge of the canvas to cause the eye to focus there, and to act as a tangent. I see a long vertical line along the left edge, which may be some artifact of the photo of the painting, or it may be part of the architecture. If the latter, you would want to get rid of it.

How do you deal with these things and avoid them in the next painting? Here are some thoughts:

You were hired to paint this painting because your client believes you know better than he does. Don't disappoint him. If the notion of including the identity of architecture, as represented by the staircase, diminishes the painting, either find a way to integrate it so completely within your composition that it supports the painting as a whole, or tell him it can't be a part of the painting. Have him build a beautiful presentation case instead.

Review all the information on this Forum with regard to photographing your subject; there's a wealth of stuff here. Use the "search messages" function at the top of the page.

Plan your value scheme in advance. Try using a thumbnail sketch, forcing all your shapes into just three values. Connect your dominant values, as well as your subordinate values. Sprinkle in interest in values later as necessary to move the eye toward the center of interest in a visually pleasing way. Review all the information on this Forum regarding values, value massing, or composition.

Control your edges to help support your center of interest. Again, use the "search message" button.

I hope you will view this critique with the most sincere way in which it is meant. You are already ahead of the game with your skill in drawing, sense of color harmony, and control of the paint. As of now, you only have 11 months and 29 days, so no time to *****foot around.

Kindest regards,
Chris

Thank you very much
 

Chris,

A very sincere thanks for the critique, and I agree that the composition is clumsy, detracting from the face and elegance of the feminine lines of the body.

Besides, of course, recomposing the work completely, I personally think one way to "save" the painting as it is would be to modify the background colors to a much darker field, to add a SUBTLE pattern to the wall so that all of the information surrounding the subject here is closer in value (therefore eliminating islands of pattern and value), and also helping contrast and emphasize the lighter value of the face, to bring back to the main focus.

Thanks again,
Linda

Laying with the background
 

Just thought I'd quickly illustrate what I mean to see if you thing it's a solution Chris...

Linda,

Big improvement. It's unclear whether you plan to actually make any changes in the painting or whether you are looking for solutions that might apply to future work.

If you plan to actually change the painting, you'll need to be religiously careful about the stripes. They must be straight, exactly sized, and their perspective has to be accurate.

There's much more visual support for the figure, but without getting rid of the bannisters and lamp, you are probably at the limit of where you can go compositionally.

Just a thought on the banisters and backgrounds in general
 

I would turn down the lights on the stairs, so to speak. Paint her as if the only light is on her and then put the lesser architectural elements in the dark and paint just enough of them so a viewer can still tell what it is. The dark banister will fade back if the area of the stairs is dark. Also the area of the floor behind her could be made much darker and maybe even show her shadow across the floor and then up the wall, which will give the painting more depth. Turn down the light on most of the chair to play it down and also make the strange perspective caused by the camera lens less noticeable.

Think chiaroscuro, the technique of using light and shade in pictorial representation, the arrangement of light and dark elements in a pictorial work of art. It is Italian, "chiaro" meaningg bright-light, and "obscure" meaning dark or no light.) The word is also used to describe a method of painting in which you paint the lights and darks in a brown or greenish toned under painting. It is called this because you paint lights and darks only with that layer of paint.

Think chiaroscuro every time you think composition. The placement of your lights and darks is as important if not more important than how the objects are arranged. I feel it is more important because if you place an object in the dark, it is hidden from view and the light and dark shapes formed by the shadows and lights are what give the painting form and direct the eye to points of interest. (Color, edges and line also do this so I don't mean to say that the lights and darks are the only thing to worry about.)

I always try and take a tip from Caravaggio on composition -- put your subject in the spot light and the supporting cast in the ambient light and the unimportant in the shadow.

For Caravaggio, chiaroscuro meant that god was in the light and the absence of light was the absence of god. And he used this technique extremely well. In the painting below:

You can see more of his work here:
http://www.artrenewal.org/asp/database/art.asp?aid=589

P.S. You do not need to go as dark as Caravaggio with the darks but you need some more darks to contrast with the lights.

Oops, forgot:

Digital vs. 35 mm
 

Linda, for future reference, I would always suggest a 35mm camera with a 50mm lens for body shots and an 80mm lens for head shots to 3/4. With 35mm film and a very sharp lens (I use Nikon) you can get large, even life-size blowups to put up next to your canvas. This way you can see your reference and the painting at the same time. You can also compare them in a mirror which reveals a lot of errors.

The digital prints are too grainy to do this unless you have a $20,000 camera. I find that a lot a people use too small a print, which makes their work tighter. I like to get the head blown up to my working size, an enormous help, especially when placed directly next to the portrait. Also, you can get custom work done more cheaply. For example, if a portion of the print is too washed out, say the hands, you can have the printer darken them.

Also, I have had excellent luck with Portra NC 160, a Kodak film developed especially for portraits. The light tones are not washed out and the shadows are not black. That and a portable silver reflector and I am good to go!

Good luck for the future, you have already received some really good advice from the pros here, but I do have a few comments.

A: The gold of her hair and gown calls out for a dark dramatic background. The dark background would highlight her hair and allow you to get richer tones in the gown.

B: Always try to shoot figures at the waist, it gives a more regal look. This does not work on people with full chins as they have to look down and that accentuates it. Also some older women look better if they are seated and looking slightly up as that smoothes out the chin.

C: I'm not so sure I like the stripes as that again detracts from the figure.

D: With a young adult such as this you can use stronger, more interesting lighting on the face. Look at good fashion photos for interesting ideas.

E: Your painting size is too small for the figure. Most professional portrait artists like to work same size as the figure. I prefer an 8" head on an adult female, so in my calculations the figure mid-calf would be 7 heads high X 8", the figure alone would be 56". See the thread on figure size and my body proportions. I do my figures based on an 8 head figure.

Notwithstanding my caveats you really have a beautiful start here.

Sincerely,

Great advice, Sharon,

I especially like your recommendation about the camera being waist high. In my first post I hinted about that when I said I bet the camera was held at eye level to the subject but I did not mention what would be a better height. So I am glad you brought it up.

I am sure you have much more experience than I in getting great photo reference for a painting like this. I usually try to work from life and my photos are usually only a guide for latter work when the person is not there.

Although I have done plenty of illustrations of full-length figures, I have not done that many full-length portraits, for the very reason you referred to in your post. And that is, they must be large and usually the people that I get commissions from do not have the room for such a large canvas and a full-length portrait is out of the question. I sure would like to get more, since I would make a much better living if I did, but at this time I get way more head and shoulder commissions then even 3/4. To date I have only received one standing full-length portrait commission and a few full-length adults in a seated pose so the canvas did not need to be as tall. It may be that because I do not show full length portraits, I do not get more commissions for them, but it is hard to do a lot of large paintings like that when you are not getting many requests for full-length portraits. It is kind of a Catch 22. I might get more commissions for them if I painted more and I would paint more if I got more commissions for them.

Well, anyway, I will always value your advice, and on this one especially, since you have done way more paintings like this than I.

Full length
 

Hi, Michael,

Thanks for the chiarascuro info, that is a great help. I think you are right to work from life when you can, this is just a poor substitute.

I find shooting the photo in the same light the portrait is being painted in, i.e., my studio, is the best of both worlds. I have the model pose live, and if he or she is not able to come, I have my very patient photo there to refer to.

I have done photo shoots with the clear understanding that the client is to pose, only to have them flatly refuse.

I find that if I get the client's costume, put it on a form, that color can help me key the skin tones. That and a local victim with the same skin color can be employed.

I prefer the photo and model combo in my own work, as I like to work alone, but as you have pointed out there is no substitute for life.

Sincerely,

Thanks again all
 

Chris - As far as revising the painting, the client already has the painting and I doubt I can get it back. I have received her permission though to make another for myself (to use as an example), and I'll be making changes to that one as discussed. Hopefully I can put that second portrait up for review on this thread later.

Thanks, Linda