Alice and Randy

[Terri Ficenec]

Kim -
Thanks so much for the feedback. I do need to revisit some of those edges. As far as integrating the color goes, it looks like maybe I've got to figure out what the colors ought to be first . . .

Sharon -
Thanks so much for the feedback, I really appreciate your taking the time to share your thoughts! Your points on color and color theme and needing to integrate the colors are well taken. It seems to be something I'm struggling with lately, and haven't got quite figured out.... at least I'm not getting it figured out before getting myself into a mess, these days.


I'm attaching below a glare-free photo of the painting as it is currently, and a paint shop pro altered version with the dress turned a dull burgundy wine-color (The dress she actually wore was a deep blue purple that I'd pushed more towards the blue) .... I'm wondering if this would work, rather than putting her in black?

[Sharon Knettell]

Terry,

When you work with complementary colors it helps if one of the colors dominates, ie bright red with dull green. Also you are dealing with several kinds of green warm and cool. I don't know if the monitor is correct but in the previous picture his jacket is more olivey and her dress is bright blue and the background is an intense green. Disparate greens like this can work in a landscape but is difficult to pull off in a portrait such as this.

I think at this point, to me at least, the best solution would be to keep the dress blue, put him in a navy suit and employ a soft medium blue grey background. A strident green can dull the skintones by comparison whereas a dull grey blue would make them look brighter. The grey blue should be in the same family as the dress color, it seems somewhat of an ultramarine, which means the background blue should not lean towards the green. The accent color, since the blue is more toward a purply blue would be a lovely small touch of yellow. Not a cool yellow but a yellow with some orange in it. His tie could have a the blue of her dress with a yellow stripe.

Try to put some yellow in her necklace. It should work.

I have been in this situation. It can be very frustrating. Put your feet up, have a cup of tea and look at it in the morning.

Sincerely,

[Marvin Mattelson]

I actually like this new color scheme. For what it's worth anyway. The colors wouldn't be so pure. There would be some of the background color affecting the shadows of side and top planes it reflects into. The same goes for the color of her suit. It would reflect into his suit and into the under planes of her jaw. Colors reflect and bounce everywhere. Your painting looks more like a hand colored photo than a harmonious scene. It's very difficult to make these things up though. It really needs to be observed from reality. The best solution is to set up everything so it looks good before you paint it. That's what Sargent and Paxton did, just to name two.

The thing that bothers me the most though are the dark value shadows under his jaw. Look at your photo. See how much darker the light part of the suit is compared to his jaw shadows. You have knocked the intrinsic value relationships that existed in your setup and thwarted them. The result is an unnatural look. Scumbling over these shadows with a lighter value would help.

Good luck.

[Linda Brandon]

Hi Terri,

"Married couple" paintings are the hardest thing in the world to do well, in my opinion, and I just wanted to let you know that I like your painting very much so far. I'm about to begin one of these myself and I'm watching this thread with keen interest.

I'll keep out of the color harmony discussion. The last few portraits that I've done have had very warm backgrounds and I seem to be wandering off in those directions. (I'm hoping that Tolkien was right: "Not all those who wander are lost.")

[Terri Ficenec]

Oh Sharon! --
Thanks so much for all the input and insight, it's something I REALLY need to keep in mind at the beginning of the whole painting process, and do a whole lot more planning before jumping into the painting! (and I think I need to develop a better sense of what works, too... so your comments on pairing more intense with less intense etc. etc. are greatly appreciated!) I mocked up the blue toned color scheme that you recommended in Paint Shop Pro, and those colors really would be beautiful together. (I've posted the mock-up below). Now, ..let me back up and tell you that my heart also sank when I read your post, because when I posted the sort of wine colored dress version I thought, well, now that certainly looks better than the blue... and went ahead and painted over that dress on impulse... So that the dress was no longer even blue... and your beautiful color plan meant repainting the entire canvas, something I just didn't feel up to doing -- and that really doesn't fit into the timetable for this piece!

Marvin--- your post probably saved my sanity tonite! It came along just after I'd read Sharon's and when I was in the middle of pulling my hair out for painting over the blue so impulsively. So I'm going to try to make a go of it with the wine colored dress... I hear what you're saying about the reflected colors and the contouring, I hope I'll be able to pull that together --- Thanks!

Linda, -- yes... I think I may have bitten off a little more than I can chew with this one. Two on one canvas somehow seems a little trickier with adults than kids. I haven't painted adults before AND have gotten used to doing outdoors backgrounds which somehow seem to come together more easily for me, colorwise. As far as the color harmony goes, I'm feeling like, hmmm... well, I'm just not trusting my judgement in that area lately. The other painting I'm currently working on (also indoors) is also in color limbo. Maybe I should stick with the outdoors ones!

So I'm going with the wine color scheme partly for expedience... This painting is supposed to be done about now... but am wondering if there's a concensus that the blue theme is superior to this, perhaps I ought to offer the client the option of having the color reworked in that direction, and pushing the delivery date back?

[Terri Ficenec]

Well... here's where it's at right now. I'm still combing through yesterday's feedback to see what I've missed yet. (At this point I've just changed her dress color, and tried to go back to capture some of that reflected light... but haven't touched on other details.)

Any additional thought/comments are welcome!

[Michele Rushworth]

I wouldn't make any further major color changes. As Marvin mentioned, those decisions really need to be done at the very beginning, by choosing articles that actually are the colors you want. The highly complex reflections and influences between colors are just about impossible to predict and almost always look "made up" if one attempts to guess or invent them, especially without many years of experience at painting these color influences from life.

Next time, even if painting a two-adult-interior portrait, you'll have a MUCH easier time of it, by doing this planning up front, guaranteed!