Oil portrait of Toni
 

I would love some feed back on this painting as it is a little different to my usual style. The model sadly has gone awol so any suggestions for improvements that i can make without needing him to be present.

Also for any Brits - the London Atelier of Representational Art will running a course again this August. Go to www.thelara.co.uk for more info

Thanks,
Catherine

Wow, great drama and a fascinating model! It seems like the drawing on the eye may be a bit off (is too far left perhaps?) but what a nice piece, and one that is full of depth.

The eye is what I have been struggling with most. He really has gone AWOL so I can't get him back to pose and none of my other models would make suitable replacements. Any detailed ideas?

I don't think the position or form of a black person's eye is that different from other ethnic groups so perhaps another model might be sufficient to work from for this aspect of things. If it was a problem with other areas of the face you would need a model with a similar ethnic background, but I think you'd be alright having someone else sit for this fix.

Catherine, I love seeing your atelier studies on the Forum....

I'm not sure what you'd get out of developing this further, without your model.

I'm reading Harold Speed again, and he has a beautiful chapter on the rhythm created by "unity and variety" in a piece. The one thing that I think you could improve sans model is the unity of tone: the lightest highlights are in your halftones and shadows, which is breaking up your tonal symphony. I think if you knock them back, you've got a great study of a head.