Jeffrey

[Garth Herrick]

Hi Garth (Love your name, Jerome),

All good comments above. I too think this portait has a lot of good refreshing things going for it. I actually like the shirt, punchy as it is. It reminds me of a Van Gogh reproduction I grew up with, and also reminds me of some favorite Cezannes; so I'm all for the loose blocky forms if that is the effect you are after.

I too would be careful of the background treatment, as Cindy pointed out. Also be careful of the seeming lack of roundness or form in the darkest passages, like the cap. What I mean is, try to avoid sinking into black holes that are aimless and formless. Even the darkest passages should resonate as a form, turning plane, or color, to tie it all together whith that white shirt. If the reference image lacks this info, then try recontructing some of the data for the black holes from a still life mock-up or someone posing in life, and you will resolve those voids.

Great composition!

Garth

[Mari DeRuntz]

Jerome,

Actually I was intrigued with the treatment of the shirt because it almost looks like you are pushing color in the lights - but this is hard to see in the image on the screen.

If the shirt does push color and temperature to pop the form, a similar treatment in the flesh would work wonders: for the flesh my mind is calling for a clear treatment of up planes and down planes, not just light and shadow.

I agree with the comments above: the bone in my throat is the background. Even atmosphere can be solidly painted.

Good luck; keep us posted.

[Garth Parker]

Cindy, Garth and Mari,
I appreciate your comments and critique.
I changed the

[Mari DeRuntz]

Jerome, about those draped arms...

Had the chance recently to see a lecture presented by a local sculptor and what he said, combined with what you see in drapery studies of sculptors and mural painters from the ancient Greeks through the Renaissance through the best contemporaries offers another valid general critique of this piece:

A sculptor first sculpts the nude model so the anatomy or form is easily legible. Drapery is sculpted by additions of clay that describe form that falls away from the form. The best mural painters have a similar knowledge of form: you can see in Michelangelo or Volterra how the garments are painted on the form of the flesh.

How does this relate to what you've done here? Folds, clothing, drapery - should always describe the form underneath. If the viewer has a sense of the sausage of the arm filling that white cotton sleeve, if the logic of the drapery explains what you know of the form conceptions of the anatomy - you'll have entered one of the most enviable realms, where the artist can filter the accidents of nature through a higher intelligence and suddeny, you're really composing your work.