Portrait of my father-in-law
 

This is 40 x 30, oil on canvas, painted from resource photos I took with a Canon S50 digital camera. It's only my third oil portrait in a mostly self-taught medium (my training was more watercolor-focused), so I welcome critiques from you more seasoned professionals. My goal is to learn more of an Old Masters approach. This portrait was done wet-into-wet, mostly.

Deborah, can you post the reference photo(s) you used? That will help everyone give you a more useful critique.

Also, you may need to rephotograph the painting itself, with more even lighting, and repost it. It looks as if the light is very concentrated in the face area and everything else on the canvas is out of the light. Photographing paintings in daylight is also important. This looks like it was photographed with a small incandescent light instead.

Thanks, Michele. You're right, of course. I decided to just delete the post until I can make a better photo. Sorry.

Check out the threads in the Forum section on how to photograph your paintings. I look forward to seeing your portrait again after you've taken a new picture of it.

Deborah,
It looks like you've edited the first entry to add the reference photo and a new image of the painting.

In general, I like the drawing and likeness.

The first thing I notice is the lack of dark values in the skin tones. This makes the skin tones look washed-out and flattens out the form. When I squint at the painting, the head becomes a uniform pink blur, whereas the photo still shows a distinct shadow side.

The second thing I see is the pink color of the skin. Cooler tones in the darker values would help to develop the 3D form.

In the coat, you have some darker values, but you still have a narrow value range, in that the highlights in the lighted area do not go nearly as light as in the photo.

Thanks, Deborah, for reposting a new photo of the painting, and including the reference photo.

I agree with Chuck. The problems are ones of value. There is no differentiation in the painting between the areas of the head that are in the light and the areas that are in shadow, so there is no feeling of form and volume.

Thanks, Chuck. I see what you're saying, of course. Part of the problem is, I attempted to go lighter than my resource photo, which was probably a mistake to start with.

Again, this is partly due to the photograph of the painting. I did follow instructions for photographing outside (north side of house, etc.), but the results are still not quite true to the actual painting. I don't know what I'm doing wrong. Your critique is still valid, however, but perhaps not to the degree that it seems in these images.

Has anyone noticed the super intense lense distortions going on in the photo? It has widely and strongly whacked out his proportions.